The Needs of the Few
by Sevlow
Summary: ON HIATUS! Sometimes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Sometimes, it takes a tragedy to realize your destiny.
1. War

((A/N: This story takes place after CoS, so if you haven't seen it, I don't recommend reading any further for reasons of spoilerificness. It follows the series timeline, but does diverge a bit from the movie (mostly in the sense that Ed and Al remain in Central instead of going back to Europe).

Warnings: I should point out that there is going to be a lot of Hurt/Comfort in this story... only, not so much with the comfort part. _Mostly_ just the Hurty, actually... more so than my other fics, I think. Beware of gore, angst, and death, as always.

Anyway, enjoy.))

* * *

"He's not going."

"Yes, he is."

"I don't want him to go."

"Unfortunately, Edward, it rarely matters what you want." Mustang turned away from him, curtly signaling that he was done speaking with him. He turned his only remaining eye to the throng of soldiers scrambling around the military vehicles and bellowed, "Havoc! Get those guns loaded onto the truck. Make sure that everyone is ready to go! Let's move it!"

"Yes, Fuhrer!"

Ed shouldered his pack a little more securely, feeling confined in the military uniform that he only rarely wore. It smelled vaguely of mildew from being stuck in the back of his closet for so long, and the dark blue cloth was stiff. "He's not going," he insisted.

"I'm not having this conversation with you again," Mustang sighed, walking away as he continued watching his men work, making sure that everything was done correctly. His single eye was sharp and intense, focused entirely on the battle preparations being made before him as he spoke. "He's a dog of the military now, just like we are, and he's bound to serve his country. This is war and we _all _must do our part, Fullmetal."

"But he _can't_ go to war!" Ed shouted, following after him, "He's just a kid!"

"He's not a kid. He's nearly seventeen and he's seen as many battles as you have. He passed the State Alchemy exam with higher scores than anyone in the past century, including you. He's no worse off than any other soldier here; in fact, I'd say he has the advantage." He turned from Ed again as he climbed up into one of the trucks. "Get going, men!" he shouted to the enlisted peons rushing around them like a swarm of ants, "Two minutes before departure! The Drachmans aren't going to hold off their invasion to wait for us to get our shit together, so step on it!"

"But Mustang—" Ed tried again desperately.

"Ed, it's not your decision and I don't have the time or patience to deal with you right now," he snapped, seating himself next to Major Hawkeye in the front of the truck. "If you have a problem with it, take it up with your brother." Mustang slammed the door shut without waiting for a reply.

Ed clenched his fist, glaring at his Fuhrer's blind side, half-wanting to tear the patch off of his smug face and punch him in his empty eye socket.

...He was right, though.

Ed needed to try and talk to Alphonse again, to see if he could change his mind. There was still time before they left for the border. Al didn't need to go into battle. He was still too fragile. He needed to be protected, not tossed into a war that had nothing to do with him. The country of Drachma could care less about Alphonse Elric, whether or not he was a soldier... or a State Alchemist for that matter.

He craned his neck and peered through the crowd, trying to find Al's lanky frame among the soldiers piling into the trucks. There he was. Ed jogged toward him, waving.

Alphonse looked over, saw him, and cringed.

* * *

The sun was just coming up over the horizon, a soft glow of yellow spilling over the frigid countryside in a slow wave. The thin sunlight soaked into the brambles and tree-trunks that spotted the open field, but then was filtered out and died almost completely where the trees grew thicker, leaving only pale, infrequent splotches of the buttery color on the cold dimness of the forest floor.

The leaves were falling quickly now as winter crawled nearer, littering the ground with multicolored piles, though the colors were muted somewhat by the frost that had gathered on them during the night. The first snow of the season would soon fall. The eight-hundred soldiers—all of them packed into the forty-six roaring, rumbling trucks that crashed along the overgrown, unpaved road—could only hope that winter would hold back just long enough for them to fight this battle without the added difficulty of snowfall.

The interior of the trucks had been fairly quiet for the past several hours. The caravan had been on the road since mid-morning the day before and many of the soldiers were dozing while they could, snatching a few hours of sleep in preparation for what they would face today. Some of them curled against one another for warmth or leaned-back-to-back on the cramped benches, trying to pretend that they weren't as uncomfortable or as terrified as they actually were.

Other soldiers were wide awake, elbows propped on their knees, lips pressed against their fists as they fingered their holy beads and prayed quietly. Their eyes were closed, their minds in a haze of piety as they waited for the trucks to stop and announce their arrival. They licked their dry lips and wondered which of their comrades—the men and women sitting beside them—would not make it home.

Roy was one of the few in the truck that chose to abstain from both prayer and sleep, finding both endeavors to be futile this late in the game. They had less than an hour before they arrived at their established base-camp—a mere ten miles from the border—so what little sleep he'd be able to get in that time wouldn't be much help... and God—if He existed—had been deaf to Roy for his entire life, whether or not he prayed for His guidance.

"Still awake?"

Hawkeye's voice stirred him from his dark musings and he smirked at her. She, Breda, and Havoc had been switching off driving all through the night and the shift had come back to her several hours ago--but she still seemed to be going strong.

"Sleep is for the weak," he scoffed, sitting up a little straighter to stretch out his stiff back muscles.

"I'm weak, I'm weak..." Havoc groaned from his seat behind Hawkeye, burrowing under his uniform jacket and scooting a little closer to Breda so that he could lean his head on his shoulder. Breda, also awake, tolerated it with an eye-roll. Havoc had already loudly decided that—out of Roy's staff—Breda made the best pillow and should therefore do his brotherly duty and share a bench with him in the front of the truck.

Fuery and Falman were sharing the bench behind Roy, both of them sleeping lightly, occasionally shifting or briefly opening their eyes before finding sleep again. Edward and Alphonse were also in this truck—which was discreetly in the middle of the caravan, so as to not attract attention if the Drachmans decided to ambush them before they got to camp... Roy was Fuhrer, after all, and he had to proceed with some caution—but they were in the back compartment with the rest of the troops, as there was not enough room for them in the front. Roy could see them through the parted folds of canvas that separated the two compartments. Edward was deeply asleep, snoring against his brother, his arms wrapped around him tight, eerily possessive even from the depths of sleep.

Alphonse was awake though, his light brown eyes staring expressionlessly at the opposite wall of soldiers, lost in his thoughts. He looked uncomfortable and worried, but Roy knew that it wasn't the upcoming battle that was furrowing his brow so.

Roy sighed and turned back to face the road, looking at the truck in front of them and the tired soldiers he could see through the canvas-shrouded dimness within. Hawkeye heard the sigh and glanced over her shoulder at Ed and Al, somehow—as she often did—instantly knowing his thoughts.

"Is Ed doing any better?"

Roy took a slow, frustrated breath through his nose. "Not according to Al, no."

"...Have you talked to him about therapy?"

"I've discussed it with Alphonse, but I don't think he's brought it up to Ed yet. Al thinks it's a good idea, though... I don't know how much more of this he can take."

Hawkeye nodded, understanding. She was one of the few, outside of Alphonse and Roy himself, who really _did_ understand.

Edward was having some problems lately. Unfortunately, Ed was the only one who didn't seem to see them as problems.

Years ago, after Edward had returned Al to his body and disappeared into the void—where he had apparently spent a couple of years in another world, a fact that still made Roy's mind reel a little—Al had been so lost without him. And then after he had finally returned, exhausted and battered as he helped fight off the invasion that had come from that Other Side, Al had clung to him as if his very life depended on it. Ed had reciprocated the needy affection, his role of guardian and big brother exponentially amplified by Alphonse's inability to remember anything that had happened since his soul had been bound to the suit of armor. Al was suddenly years younger and Ed was only too happy to take care of him.

After a while though, with Ed's constant coaxing, Al had started remembering things again. And now, over four years later, Al's memory had fully recovered and he was blossoming into a strong, independent young man. He had joined the military, passing the State Alchemy Exam with flying colors and earning himself the title of Dual-Life Alchemist for his ability to infuse pieces of his soul into the objects around him, creating golems that he could control with his alchemy.

It had been one of Roy's most rewarding tasks as Fuhrer to give him that title, and he'd thought that his heart would burst with pride when he'd signed the document to make it official. Both of them now, these boys that he had seen grow into adulthood, had made something of themselves. They were men now, and they had a bright future in the military.

Al's future was _especially_ bright; he was quickly becoming one of Roy's favorites in the ranks. He was hardworking, loyal, brilliant, and knew how to take an order without question while still maintaining both dignity and integrity. Roy was so pleased with him that he was already thinking of giving him a promotion, in spite of how green he still was and how it would make the Parliament wag their tongues about favoritism.

Well, _let_ them talk.

...And Roy knew that it was far, far too soon to be thinking of such things—he hadn't even been Fuhrer for a full year yet—but he already saw the makings of a great leader in Alphonse, and he would be overjoyed to pass on the title of Fuhrer to him if he wanted it.

It might just be a pipe dream, but just thinking about Alphonse carrying on his legacy made Roy smile. But then he quickly frowned again as his thoughts returned to Edward.

Unfortunately, though, as Al continued to gain confidence in himself and forge his own path, Ed continued to cling. Alphonse was actively trying to have a separate identity from his big brother—a perfectly normal thing for him to want to do, Roy thought, after so many years of living in Ed's shadow—but Edward just couldn't let go. At first, Al had been mildly annoyed by it and frequently asked Ed to just leave him alone, but after a while it became clear that his fraternal neediness wasn't just from habit or nostalgia. It was something much deeper than that that bordered on neurosis.

Roy had ignored it at first, thinking that Al would be able to handle it... but things were getting steadily worse. The more that Al tried to loosen Ed's hold on him, the tighter Ed clung. Fullmetal had been very firmly against Al joining the military, wanting him to just stay home and live off of Ed's own stipend...

But Al was an Elric, and history showed that the Elrics were a restless bunch. Needless to say, Alphonse had gone against his brother's wishes and taken the Alchemy exam.

Edward had gotten near-hysterical when he'd found out that Al had "sold his soul again so soon after getting it back"—as he had frantically put it—in an anxious display that completely shocked Roy, to say the least. Ed hadn't just been upset, he'd been _terrified_. That was when Roy realized that this situation had grown into something that needed to be dealt with—swiftly and delicately.

What really drove the point home though was the incident in the shooting range. Al's gun had backfired during a training session, lancing his hand with second-degree burns. The burns hadn't been that bad, but seeing his brother get hurt had sent Ed into a violent kind of panic-attack that moved Hawkeye to make him sit down and put his head between his knees for fear that he'd faint. Even Al, who even then had sworn to him that the injury was really very minor, could not calm him for several minutes.

The experience had been very unsettling for all parties. Hawkeye had quietly confided to Roy later that his behavior smacked loudly of shellshock. Perhaps all the horrifying things that he'd been through in his life had finally caught up with him, she suggested. Ed was fine for the most part, but when it came to Al it was clear that his perception had become warped over the past few years. Ed's worst nightmare was losing his brother and, since Al was made of fragile flesh again instead of tempered metal, that scenario seemed frighteningly likely to him. And so, out of love, fear, and a twisted sense of responsibility, Ed sought to shield Al from anything that could possibly harm him.

Frustratingly for Alphonse, just about _everything_ was a potential danger in Ed's eyes.

Alphonse had finally come to Roy personally a few months ago, at his wits' end for what to do about his brother. This had gone beyond Al wanting some personal space; Ed's behavior was starting to _scare_ him. It was clear that Ed's problem was something that he needed to work out with a psychiatrist, and Roy recommended several specialists in the military to Al... but, as of yet, it didn't seem that Al had summoned the courage to actually talk to Ed about it.

Roy rubbed his temple, his fingers brushing against his eye patch. Well, there was no use in worrying about it right now; the battle on the horizon needed to take precedence in his mind. Maybe this excursion, Al's first real mission, would help to remind Ed that he really _could_ take care of himself—whether or not he was made out of iron at the moment.

"They're strong kids. They'll work it out," Hawkeye consoled, reaching over and laying a tender hand on his thigh as she drove. He smiled and took her hand in his. She was right. The boys had hit a rough patch, but they'd be okay.

"...Hmph. Helluva way for us to spend our honeymoon, isn't it?" Roy teased, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. "Gunpowder... destruction... It's all so romantic, I can hardly contain myself."

"I dunno, Boss," Havoc piped up again, having apparently given up on sleep, "I don't think that I can envision you two having a honeymoon anywhere _but_ a battlefield. This seems right up your alley. You two are freaks."

Hawkeye laughed good-naturedly and reached back behind her seat to punch him in the shin. Roy knew that she wasn't really named "Hawkeye" anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to call her anything else after so many years... even "Riza" didn't really sound right unless they were alone together. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind that he still called her by her maiden name.

He let his smile deepen as he leaned his head back against the seat. She was such an amazing woman. Why it had taken him so long to admit it to himself—and to her—was a mystery in hindsight. It had taken a bullet to the head, a long recovery, and a long seclusion in the mountains to remind Roy how precious life was--and that near-deadly epiphany had forced him to look at her differently... and now he could not see her any other way. For the first time in his life, Roy Mustang was madly in love.

He could almost hear Maes Hughes in his head, joyously cackling about it from beyond the grave. _Damn Roy, took you long enough!_

Hawkeye was just so perfect for him. She didn't care that this long, tedious drive to the border was technically their honeymoon. She didn't even mind that they most likely weren't going to have a real wedding ceremony beyond when they had gone down to the courthouse with witnesses to sign papers and make it all legal. She even seemed to prefer it this way. For her, she was a soldier first and a wife second, which was just fine with Roy. He felt the same way. And it wasn't because they loved each other any less—no, not at all... Roy could light bonfires in an ice storm with his love—it was just because they were both married to Amestris first and foremost, and their duty to their country preceded any duty that they had to one-another, and they both understood and respected that.

And that's why they were here—all of them—to defend their shared bride against those who would harm her.

The trucks ahead of them slowed to a stop and Hawkeye followed suit. Roy leaned over and kissed her as she unbuckled her seat belt.

They had arrived.

Honeymoon over.

* * *

Alphonse ducked under a naked tree branch that crookedly outstretched over the path that the soldiers in front of him had forged. Ed followed close behind, but—Al noted with mild amusement—he was short enough to walk under the branch without needing to duck. He almost pointed it out—if only to distract his brother from his current fit of overbearing concern—but instead he just sighed and kept walking.

"You can leave if you want," Ed was saying, keeping his voice low so that the soldiers hiking behind them wouldn't overhear. "I'll cover for you until I can get away too, then we can hitchhike to Resembool."

"Brother, we can't do that..." Al sighed, not wanting to argue anymore.

"Sure we can, it'll be simple! We can just—"

"I am _not_ going AWOL, Ed."

"I'm just saying—"

"Leaving in the middle of a mission is a felony. I'm staying, okay? This is my job. It's your job, too."

"Yeah, but—"

"Ed!" Al barked, stopping in his tracks so quickly that his brother nearly ran into him. "You need to stop this."

"Stop what? You don't need to be here, this isn't your fight!"

"This _is_ my fight! It's everyone's fight! This is our country, isn't it?" Ed's face darkened as Al spoke, his worry clouding over with frustration—as it often did lately when Al defended himself. Alphonse turned away from him with a harsh sigh and started walking again. "I joined the military to serve Amestris, Brother, and that's what I'm doing. This is my calling, my duty. Please don't stand in the way of that."

Ed was quiet for a few beats. Al could almost feel him stewing behind him, boring holes into his back with his formidable glare. After a moment though, Ed stormed forward, rudely brushing past him to walk in front of him.

"Sometimes you sound just like Mustang, you know that?" he spat, not looking back.

"_Thank_ you! I take that as a compliment!" Al shot back, then smiled to himself grimly as he saw Ed's shoulders tense in disgust. Ed knew that he meant it.

Things between Mustang and Edward had gotten even more tense than usual since Al joined the military. Ed blamed Mustang for Al's newfound outlook on life and made no secret of it. The fact that Alphonse genuinely liked Mustang and looked up to him only served to aggravate Ed further... and then, on top of that, the way that Mustang was actively encouraging Al to be more independent made Ed absolutely _hate_ him. Frankly, Al was afraid that it was going to come to blows...

Edward just wanted Al to just follow him around and do what he wanted all the time, like he used to. And that had been fine years ago, when they'd needed to be a strong, inseparable team in order to complete their quest and find the Philosopher's Stone... but those times were over, and they needed to integrate themselves into normal life now. Alphonse knew that they could both make a good living as State Alchemists, doing research—perhaps even teaching, a thought that Al was very partial to—and occasionally serving in active martial duty when the country needed it. They had a future here. And Mustang had been so pleased when Alphonse had expressed interest in State Alchemy as a _career_ instead of just a way to get research funds and information, the way Ed saw it. Ed didn't take this seriously, but Al did. This is what he wanted for his life and he couldn't give that up just because it made Ed nervous.

Everything made Ed nervous these days, though. Alphonse could barely leave their shared apartment without getting the third degree. He was treating him like a child, something that he had never done before when he was in the armor. True, being made of flesh and blood did make Al more vulnerable, but that didn't mean that he was helpless and needed to be protected every second of the day. He was just as gifted in alchemy and martial arts as Edward and, though it had taken him some time to remember it all, he had fought alongside him in battle dozens of times.

He was a man, not an infant, and all he wanted was for Ed to let him _be_ a man.

Al sighed, watching his brother's blond head disappear as he moved further up in the line of soldiers—probably to go harass Mustang and let off some steam.

But Ed wasn't being like this intentionally... Al knew that, even if he had to keep reminding himself of it to keep from getting too angry at him. Ed was afraid, terrified of losing Al. It was almost like a phobia. It gave him nightmares that awoke him, screaming, in the middle of the night. Then he'd crawl into bed with Al and hold him tight, often crying against his shoulder, saying "You're okay, Al. You're okay, you're okay..." over and over again like some kind of ritualistic chant. Ed would never talk about what was in these dreams, but from his fits of panic afterwards Al felt that he could safely assume that they were about him.

The first several times these screaming nightmares had happened, Al had been deeply scared for him. Now that it was becoming more and more frequent occurrence, though, he was almost used to it. Not to say that he wasn't still afraid for his brother's state of mind... but the fear had settled down in the back of his mind like a dull throbbing in his thoughts instead of something that occupied his every waking moment.

Maybe Ed was just badly adjusted. He and Al hadn't exactly had the best childhood, but Al at least had had the chance to re-live some of it. It was almost as if he'd had _two _childhoods and remembered them both vividly, and from that unique perspective, he could see where Ed was coming from. If Al hadn't been gifted with his second chance, he knew that he would probably still be clinging to Edward the way that Edward clung to him... but, still, that didn't mean that it was healthy.

Ed needed help. This was all too much for him and Al could visibly see that his constant worry and fears were starting to wear on him. Mustang had given Al a list of therapists that they might contact to get Ed some counseling... but Al had chickened out every time he'd tried to bring it up, convincing himself that Ed would be fine on his own, that he would come to terms with things eventually and let up a little...

But things were getting worse rather than getting better and Al had to finally admit to himself that Ed wasn't going to be okay without outside help.

...After they got back to Central, Al promised himself with a sigh, they would talk about it.

A sudden crack of gunfire startled Al from his thoughts and his had flew to his gun in an instant. The soldier directly in front of him cried out and fell backward against a tree, clutching his arm. Al caught sight of a shadow amongst the ice-laden plants beside them and fired a single shot. The shadow went down in a crash of foliage.

Every soldier in the company drew their weapons and fell completely silent as they waited for any other sign of movement from the forest beyond the trail.

Nothing. Then,

"Al!"

Alphonse looked up to see Ed barreling toward him. He blew past the wounded soldier in his rush to get to him, nearly knocking him over. His eyes were wide and his face had blanched in the grip of terror. He took Al's arm frantically and looked him over for any sign that he'd been hurt, all traces of his previous anger and frustration vaporized in this sudden explosion of worry.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt? I-I heard guns go off and—"

"No, I'm fine, Ed," Al assured him quickly, trying to shake him off as he stepped over to his wounded ally, who was still leaning up against the tree he'd stumbled into, nursing his bleeding arm—Thompson was his name, if Al was recalling it correctly. It looked as if the bullet had only grazed his shoulder, but he certainly looked in pain.

"A-are you sure?" Ed queried shakily, his breath coming and going in half-panicked bursts, his hand tightening almost painfully on his arm. "Take your jacket off, lemme see..."

"Ed, I said I'm _fine_. Please calm down."

"Did you fucking see how _close_ to you that was?" he exploded, gesturing at Thompson with one frantic hand. "You see what I mean?! This is _exactly_ why you need to get out of here!"

"Thompson!" Mustang barked as he came back down the trail to see what had happened. He stopped in front of the solider and took in his wound with a quick glance. "Can you still shoot, Private?" he asked after a cursory beat.

"I think so, sir," Thompson responded with admirable strength, managing a smile.

Mustang smirked back at him, beaming. "Good, then tape it up and walk it off."

"Yes, sir!"

The Fuhrer turned his sharp eye to the Elric brothers. In a bare moment, he saw how tightly Ed was gripping Al and how frightened he still looked—even though a good quantity of that fright had transformed into hatred the moment that Mustang came into view. His brow furrowed. and he shot Alphonse a dark look that hit him like a silent order: _You need to talk to him. Soon._

Al swallowed and nodded once. Mustang returned his quick nod, knowing that he understood, and turned to the shadow that Al had shot through the trees.

"Drachman scout," he announced to his men as he crouched down beside the body, a dark-haired youth that couldn't have been any older than fifteen. Al's bullet had caught him in the forehead and had blown out the back of his skull like a party favor. "Young. Too young. He must have panicked when he saw us and just started firing. Who picked him off?"

"I did, sir," Al answered, standing at attention.

"Ah, Major Elric. It isn't easy shooting under-pressure at a target you can barely see. I'm impressed."

Ed made a choked, disbelieving sound in the back of his throat and Mustang frowned at him again, but Al's heart still swelled at the rare compliment. Mustang stood up and started back toward the front of the line.

"Keep an eye out for any more scouts, men," he ordered. "_Two_ eyes, if you have them."

The company tittered a little at his self-deprecating joke and fell in line, but Al could practically feel his comrades' heightened alertness. Ed stuck even closer to him than he had before, his eyes darting around nervously and he continued to grip Al's arm, ready to throw him to the ground and shield him at any sign of a threat.

The team hiked on.


	2. Puppets

((A/N: I just wanted to note that updates on this fic might be a little sporadic; life is chaotic at the moment, and I can't promise to update faithfully. I apologize in advance.))

* * *

Jean ducked as he heard the piercing whistle of another projectile heading their way. He hit the dirt—the_ mud_, really… the icy, slippery, completely unpleasant _mud_—half-grateful that the airborne bombs that the Drachmans had created at least gave them a little bit of warning as they hurtled toward them. The missile hit ground somewhere to Jean's left and exploded in a spurt of wet earth and chunks of rock. Jean shielded his face from the debris, grimacing as the hard pieces of granite hammered against his raised arm.

"Still alive over there, Havoc?" Breda called from his secure post behind the trunk of a formidable tree. As big as he was, Breda still seemed able to find the best places to shoot from during battle. He'd always had a knack for that sort of thing.

"Unfortunately!" Jean hollered back, spitting mud from his mouth as stumbling to his feet again. "I think I'd rather be dead in a nice, dry coffin than out here in the cold! I'm freezing!"

He scrambled toward Breda and braced his back against another tree nearby. He'd be safe here for a few moments, at least until the Drachmans were able to organize another volley of bombs. Luckily enough for the Amestrians, loading the cannons was a complicated process that took anywhere between two and five minutes, depending. They had a total of three cannons, but the other two were aimed toward other areas, trying to take out the other groups of soldiers that were coming at the Drachmans' stronghold from the sides.

Jean used this little pause between rounds to reload his gun, listening for the other cannons. There, the faint whistling came from his right this time, around where Fullmetal and Dual-Life were heading their own attacks. Jean hadn't seen it for himself yet, but the Elric boys were apparently just _demolishing_ the enemy, plowing toward the Drachman stronghold much more quickly than the other teams. At this rate, the battle would be over before Jean even caught a decent glimpse of the enemy headquarters.

"You know, if you're so eager to get killed, I'm sure there are some fellas over there who wouldn't mind helping you out one bit," Breda smirked, tilting his head in the general direction of the enemy.

"Pipe it, big guy."

"Now, now children…" they heard Mustang admonish dryly from his own post behind a large boulder about fifteen feet away.

The Fuhrer was flanked by Hawkeye and half a dozen other soldiers, all of them armed to the teeth with heavy artillery; it sure made an impressive entourage. Amestris' new Parliament that had been established in the wake of Bradley's fall had ordered Mustang to have at least five soldiers to watch his back if he insisted on going into battle himself—which, of course, he always did. The last thing this country needed was to lose their new leader, even if his actual leading abilities were limited somewhat by the Parliament. In the wake of Bradley, the people of Amestris were a little wary of having another military leader at the head of their country, but the fact that he was regulated by the Parliament soothed them. Mustang didn't seem to mind the arrangement much, but Jean knew that he wanted more power.

Oh well. In time, Jean knew that he would earn it. The people loved him. As much as he had been feared and hated before for his hand in the Ishbal Massacre—as he openly called it now, publicly throwing out the word "uprising" and calling it what it was—he had redeemed himself tenfold in the past few years. He'd been a crucial tool in ridding Central of the invaders from Ed's other world and had helped rebuild all that had been destroyed. After he'd been given the title of Fuhrer—his dream finally coming true—his first act had been to negotiate peace treaties with Ishbal, to make amends for the senseless damage that his country had inflicted upon theirs'. He had humbled himself, admitted his sins, and fought for a tentative kind of allegiance. It had taken a long time for the formal apology to be accepted, and riots still erupted from time to time, but the entire experience had endeared the people of Amestris to Roy Mustang.

Unfortunately, Fuhrer Bradley had made more enemies than just Ishbal, and Drachma wasn't as forgiving. Ishbal had been a generally peaceful nation until Bradley screwed them over, but Drachma and Amestris had had a long history of feuds way before Bradley came along.

Jean sighed and looked at the other soldiers around him. Falman and several other men were off in the distance, occasionally trading shots with the few enemy soldiers who dared to get in range. Jean could hear the roar of moving earth somewhere, and the sound of Fullmetal shouting at Dual-life, telling him to fall back a little.

Huh, they were closer than Jean had thought. Now that he was looking for them, he could see Al's golems milling about in the distance. They were weird, chest-high, vaguely human-shaped dolls made up of earth and rock that Al could control like a fleet of particularly creepy puppets. Jean watched three of the little fuckers converge behind a tree. There was a brief scuffle and a startled scream, then the golems came into view again, their faceless heads spattered with blood.

Jean grinned darkly. Even the Drachmans that survived this battle probably wouldn't outlive the nightmares that those golems would surely give them. Alphonse should have joined the military a long time ago. Between him, Ed, and Mustang, this ordeal wasn't going to take much longer.

They were all closing in on the Drachmans. They were advancing quickly now, only two days into the battle, and an end to the fighting was almost within reach. And all because of Mustang. Never had Jean been part of such an efficient and organized army, and the thought that his Boss and longtime friend stood at the heart of it all made his blood race with a fierce sense of camaraderie.

This man was going to change Amestris.

This man was going to change the _world_.

Another shrill whistle filled the air and everyone looked up to see a smooth, gray shell heading their way, too fast and too close to avoid. Mustang raised his head, then quickly brought his hand up and snapped. The jet of fire that left his fingers met the mid-air missile with a blinding flash, followed immediately by an earsplitting BOOM! that shook the ground and sent a spectacular display of flames and smoke streaking through the air like fireworks.

"Quickly, men," Mustang barked, the orange light of the brief fire making him look like a golden idol in the middle of this cold, mucky hellhole. "While their reloading. Go!"

"Yes, sir..." Jean grinned to himself quietly, his heart full of warm loyalty as he sprung from his post and followed him.

* * *

Al didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was staring to get tired.

"Alphonse, not so far!" Ed shouted from somewhere behind him, clapping his hands together and creating yet another upsurge of soil to use as a temporary trench. "Come back this way!"

Al looked back at his brother, panting. Ed just didn't understand. Al was _tired_, and if they wanted him to keep using his golems against the Drachmans, he needed to be closer to the enemy.

The deadly, animated figures of rock, wood, and mud that Alphonse had created as miniature, disposable soldiers worked wonderfully in combat he was discovering. Better than he had ever imagined. He had made thirty of them to begin with and, while only seven were still functioning, he had been able to bring down nearly two hundred enemies all on his own with them. He'd been horrified at first, thinking of all the lives that had ended because of him, but now the thought thrilled him. He was really doing it. He was protecting his country. He was making Mustang proud.

The only problem was that Alphonse' golems would just fall apart if they got too far away from him, the range of his alchemy depleting to almost nothing. Worse than that, the more fatigued he got, the shorter the range became. It was less than twenty yards, now, and it forced Al to advance more quickly than the rest of the troops, which left him vulnerably in the middle of the two opposing sides. He fell back when it got too dangerous or when Ed's calls got a little too frantic... but he' already lost five golems in the last three hours because he'd stayed back too far...

At this rate, he was going to lose the rest of them by the end of the day and he couldn't let that happen. He didn't have the strength to make more and he couldn't let himself mess up now, when he'd already gotten so far. The Drachman stronghold was in sight now—the grim, gray walls protected by over a hundred well-armed soldiers on the ground and then the three deadly cannons that were set up on the battlements... but none of that dampened Al's spirits. They just had to overwhelm the soldiers and dodge the missiles—which wasn't too hard if you just paid attention to when they went off... there were three of them, but only one was pointing Al's way, so it was the only one he worried about. He just needed to lead his golems forward until he was under the missile's arc—too close to the stronghold to be in any danger of them—and start taking out soldiers until Ed, Mustang, and the rest of them could join him in the fray. Then, once they took the stronghold under their power, the fight would be over. Al could win this for his country.

He looked back up at the battlement, at the black, gaping mouth of a cannon pointed almost directly at him as five strong-looking Drachmans quickly started loading it.

...Yeah. Piece of cake.

"AL! I said COME BACK!"

Alphonse ignored his brother and started running again. He had to concentrate. Besides, he had his gun on him and he knew how to use it. He'd be fine.

As if to test him, an enemy soldier sprang from the brush nearby and fired. Al felt the bullet wiz past his ear in a great rush. He spun and fired back, hitting the gray-clad man directly in the neck. He fell back with a bright spurt of blood and didn't get up again.

"ALPHONSE!" Ed screamed again, that frightened edge to his voice becoming more prominent. "GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE, NOW!"

Al looked back at him in frustration. Hadn't he just proven that he could handle this? Hadn't Ed just _seen_ that he could take care of himself with his own eyes? What did it take to convince him—?

"He's probably right this time, Dual!" Mustang called amiably as he and his bodyguards appeared out of the copse of trees near Edward and hunkered down in his makeshift trench. "Though I'm sure he could ask more nicely!"

Ed looked over at the Fuhrer with a calculating glare. He didn't smile, but Al could tell that he grudgingly appreciated that Mustang was on his side for once. But Ed was _wrong_. He was just being paranoid. Al had to prove it to them both. _He_ could penetrate the stronghold, with only his alchemy to help him. He wanted to do it, to show Mustang that he was a good soldier and a phenomenal State Alchemist. For all the flak that Al knew Mustang had gotten over the fact that he had let, first Edward, and then Alphonse join the army at such young ages... Al wanted to make it up to him, to show the whole country that he had not been mistaken in that decision. Alphonse was going to win this war for him.

Mustang had gotten himself to the top, but Al swore to himself that he would keep him there.

* * *

"He's not _listening_!" Ed hissed in exasperation as Al jogged another few steps toward the stronghold, keeping low and darting his eyes around for any sign of another attack. A trio of his golems wandered along behind him, like three eerily deformed children following after their father. "He's going to get himself hurt!"

"He just wants to prove himself, Fullmetal. To me... and to _you_, especially, I'm sure," Mustang sighed, wiping sweat and mud from his cheek with his sleeve. Hawkeye reached over and removed another fleck of mud from his chin with her thumb. He smiled over at her warmly.

"Shut up, this is your fault!" Ed seethed as the newlyweds shared a tender kiss. He climbed back up over the wall of the trench in disgust, more willing to face a volley of bullets then watch the two of them go at it. Honestly, did they _have _to make out in front of him? It was just weird. "Hey, ALPHONSE!"

"Oh, forgive me for giving him a chance to make something of himself. I'm just _filled_ with shame," the Fuhrer drawled from behind him, having apparently broken his lip-lock with Hawkeye long enough to be a sarcastic asshole.

Ed gritted his teeth and ignored him, stumbling forward through the frosted-over muck. It _was_ the bastard's fault that Al had gotten into this. Alphonse wasn't made for battle. He never had been. He'd fought out of necessity, and he'd done it well... but he hated it. He didn't need this kind of stress. He and Ed just needed to retire from the military and go back to Risembool. They could be automailists or something, maybe... Al had always liked the thought of taking on such a practice and there was no better teacher than Winry. They just needed to—

A shrill, keening noise filled the air and Ed looked up instinctively. A dark, oblong projectile screeched through the sky, heading directly toward Alphonse and his cohort of golems. Ed's heart tensed as he watched the explosive fall, screaming against his ribcage in sudden terror.

"AL!"

Alphonse bolted, trying to flee toward the stronghold in an attempt to get some distance between himself and the metal specter of death screeching after him. Al's blank-faced golems stumbled along behind, lurching forward as if trying to save him, arms outstretched.

But the missile was too close. Even if it was a just a glancing blow, the explosions were big and he was just _too fucking close_. Oh god, Al. Ed couldn't lose him too. Not after mom and dad and Nina and Hughes and Alfons and Teacher and everyone else. No, not him. Oh god oh god oh god...

The missile touched down in an explosion of mud and ice, obscuring Al from Ed's panicked view. Rock and wet earth blew upward and outward, like some kind of ugly, horrific flower violently bursting into bloom. Ed distantly heard Mustang swear from behind as he and his men clambered out of the trench, jogging to stand beside him and stare at the huge, smoky spot where Al had all too recently been standing.

Ed couldn't breathe.

But then there was movement from a pile of debris. The golems. They were huddled together in a clump, badly damaged but apparently still functioning. They pulled themselves apart, some of them losing limbs as they straightened, to reveal a figure crouched in the middle of them. Alphonse stood from their midst, coughed once, shook his head, then grimaced and calmly tried to wipe some of the mud off of his uniform.

Mustang gave a rich bark of laughter and clapped his hand onto Ed's shoulder, which—in his weak, trembling state of relief—very nearly sent him to his knees.

"That kid is unbelievable," the Fuhrer mused, his eye alight with the thrill of war and an intense kind of pride that Ed devoutly did not want to recognize. Mustang wasn't really proud of Al. He just wanted to use him as a weapon. He just wanted him to do his dirty work for him.

"You're going to get him killed," Ed seethed, shrugging out from under his sickeningly faux-paternal hand.

Mustang dropped his arm to his side and scowled. "Edward, he's _fine_. You need to lay off of him. The way you're acting isn't healthy, for either of you." He stopped for a moment, then continued with a forced kind of gentleness, "He and I both think that you need counseling. This isn't normal, the way you obsess over him. And it's getting worse."

Ed stared at him, shocked and betrayed. "_Excuse_ me? Al doesn't think that. Don't you _dare_ try to speak for him," he warned.

"Ask him about it yourself. _He_ brought it up to _me_. You think I'd make this up?"

"Yeah, I do!" Ed spat, stepping up to him and getting into his face. The bastard was lying. He was always lying.

"Why would I do that?" Mustang spat back, finally starting to get angry, "What could I possibly gain by lying to you?"

"You could gain _Al_! You're trying to take him from me, don't think I don't know! I see how you favor him, how you encouraged him to leave me so that he could join your army of freaks and get thrown into this fucking battle! He's just your puppet, you're using him and you're stealing him from me! You're just trying to split us up, but you _can't_, Mustang! He needs me! He'll die without me, can't you _see _that?"

Ed was breathing hard by the time he finished speaking, almost shaking with the release of finally saying it all out loud to him. Mustang didn't say anything for a long time. He just stared at him, the anger in his face gone, replaced by something else entirely. He almost looked sad. Ed looked away from him, then noticed that Hawkeye was staring at him in that same wary, quiet way. He cleared his throat and turned from them both, suddenly uncomfortable with his own anger but not entirely sure why.

The awkward silence between them was broken by the telltale whistle of a launched missile. They all looked up, startled. A missile had just been launched, though... it hadn't even been a full minute yet since the last explosive had nearly hit Al—nowhere near enough time for the Drachmans to have loaded another round...

"They've turned one of the cannons..." Mustang murmured, his gaze trained onto the distant battlements. And he was right. Two cannons, now, were aimed toward them—toward Alphonse.

Ed spun back to face his brother. Al wasn't moving. Did he not notice the missile hurtling toward him? He was just standing there, shaking his head as he looked over his broken golems.

"Mustang, he doesn't hear it!" Ed shouted, sprinting toward his brother, waving his arms and screaming at him to look up, to see what was coming for him.

* * *

Al shook his head again, trying to clear the painful ringing in his ears as he brushed more mud off of his sleeve. The blast had been so loud. He hadn't expected it to hit so close... Man, he hoped it hadn't blown out his eardrums. His head was pounding and all he could hear was that harsh, dizzy ringing.

But, damn, those golems sure came in handy. They were even still standing! Mostly. Sure, they were pretty beat up, but they were still working—even after a nearly direct hit by a bomb!

He raised his head to toss his brother an exuberant smirk. _Did you see, Edward? Did you see?_

But Ed was stumbling toward him, shouting something. Mustang was right behind him, both of them running hard, yelling, pointing at the stronghold at Al's back. But then Mustang threw himself forward and tackled Edward to the ground, pinning him down into the freezing mud as he struggled, screaming something that was drowned out entirely by the ringing in Al's head. He was close enough now for Al to read his lips, though, as he fought Mustang's hold on him: _Run! Please, Al, run!_ he was pleading.

Bemused, Al turned to look behind him, where they had been so frantically pointing.

The next three seconds of his life seemed to stretch out into infinity.

He saw the projectile above him, a dark, spinning bird of metal and gunpowder, and in an instant knew that it was over. All of it was over. There was nothing that he could do to dodge it and he had only moments before it struck.

He didn't have time to be upset about it, so he quietly accepted it. It would be quick, maybe even painless. He had done all that he could, and now his usefulness was spent. He had no regrets. He had helped. This battle was nearly over, and he had helped bring it to this crucial point. To victory.

He turned back to his brother and his Fuhrer and raised his hand to his brow.

* * *

Riza watched her husband chase after Fullmetal, his broad shoulders tensed with fear. He leapt and took Edward down, the two of them hitting the ground in a tangled heap.

"AL! AL, RUN!"

"It's too late, Ed!" Mustang shouted as the hysterical young man tried to push him off. "There's nothing you can do! You'll just get yourself killed!"

Alphonse stood in the distance, watching his death coming for him. The soft brown strands of his hair stirred across his mud-streaked cheek, his face so utterly, disturbingly calm... as if he were in the clutches of some kind of soothing trance, as if he was already gone. But then he turned quickly, facing both Edward and Mustang—the two most important people in his life—his eyes flashing with a sudden passion. And then, with the gentlest, most loving smile that Riza had ever seen, he saluted them.

The missile hit him in his shoulder, tearing a sharp, final cry from him in the instant before it detonated. The cloud of blood, smoke, and earth that erupted from him and the ground around him obscured most of what happened to his body in the resulting explosion, though Riza did see enough to pray that he died instantly. Even a few seconds of that kind of pain—the pain of having one's limbs torn off, one's chest eviscerated by shrapnel, one's eyes blinded by agony and fire—had to be more terrible than a hundred years in Hell... and Alphonse didn't deserve that.

The golems that had been following their master shuddered and crumbled to the ground, the source of their power abruptly snuffed. The smoke from the blast cleared a little as they fell, the gray-white clouds dispersing in a silent breeze and revealing the chunks of human meat and charred strips of blood-soaked uniform. Riza silently thanked whatever god might be listening that they were still to far away to be able to recognize any of the pieces.

Edward screamed his brother's name.

He started struggling again with renewed horror, writhing against Mustang's hold. When Mustang still didn't let go, he brought back his automail elbow and rammed it hard into his superior's temple. Mustang visibly reeled at the formidable blow and he let go, blinking dazedly as Ed pushed him off and scrambled to his feet. He slid forward a few terrified paces then stopped, eyes wide as he stared at his brother's remains.

"No... Oh, no, no..." he moaned, chest heaving.

Mustang slowly struggled to his feet, one hand pressed to his bleeding head. Riza rushed forward to help him up. He leaned against her unsteadily with a soft groan and looked over at Edward, blood streaking down past the corner of his eye.

"Shit..." he whispered. "God _damn_ it, Alphonse..."

Riza waited a beat, giving him a moment to collect himself before she spoke. "...We have to keep moving, sir," she reminded him softly, holding him against her, feeling his anguished disbelief. "They'll have the other cannon loaded soon."

He looked over at her for a moment, then straightened as if slapped. He knew she was right. There was no time for mourning. This was war. Grief could come later. They were soldiers in battle and they had to keep fighting—he knew that all too well.

He turned to the other soldiers near them, the handful of men that had been assigned to shadow and protect him. Beyond them—behind them, still fifty or so yards away—were the rest of the men in his troop, all of them proudly following him. One fallen ally, no matter how precious, could not compromise the great Mustang's leadership. He had to move forward as if nothing had happened, to stay strong in the eyes of his men and keep their spirits up.

For now, Alphonse must be left behind and forgotten.

Fuhrer Mustang nodded to her—recognizing her as Major Hawkeye and no longer his wife; that, too, would have to wait—and stepped back over to Edward.

"Fullmetal, we have to fall back. We're too out in the open here," he said gruffly, his voice expressing nothing but power and perhaps mild irritation, as if losing one of his closest subordinates were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Riza smiled at his back sadly. He'd always been good at pretending he didn't care.

Ed turned his head slowly to look at him. His eyes were still wide with shock, his lower lids heavy with moisture as he stared at Mustang. He was shaking hard, shivering as if unspeakably cold. He wasn't really crying; his eyes were watering, but he wasn't weeping. He looked as if he wasn't even capable of grieving at the moment, as completely startled as he was. His breathing was uneven, hitched as if it hurt to pull in air, and each exhalation passed through his lips in a white cloud of steam that the slight, frigid wind molded into a faint halo around his face until it evaporated entirely and vanished in the chill air.

He didn't say anything. He didn't move. He just stared.

_You can fix this, right? Right, Mustang?_ his eyes begged. _He's not really dead. No, he can't be, can he? Can he, Mustang?_

"Suck it up, Fullmetal. I told you to move out," Mustang sneered, turning toward his other men in apparent disinterest, covertly trying to downplay the blow of Ed's loss. Edward could not lose his head here, on the battlefield. He needed to keep it together until they got back to camp and if that meant that Mustang had to treat him cruelly to make him focus on hate rather than despair , then so be it.

And so, Mustang stepped away from him and didn't look back. He did, Riza noticed, stumble a little as he walked, though. His head wound didn't look good, but he couldn't let _that_ stop him, either. The country still needed him; death and injury didn't change that.

Ed stared after him for another moment, his haunting eyes riveted to the spot between the Fuhrer's shoulder blades. His breathing, which had been quick and tight before, now intensified into a hard, pained kind of hyperventilation. He turned back to the steaming wreckage of his brother's corpse, panting and moaning like a wounded animal, then suddenly let out a long, blood-freezing shriek and hit his knees.

He slammed his palms together and then pressed them hard into the mud, bolts of alchemic light erupting from his hands and dancing outward from his crouched form.


	3. Soldier

First Lieutenant Heymans Breda ran, keeping low as he, Havoc, and several other soldiers moved forward, sweeping through the trees—rushing, but still wary of enemies that might be hiding in the brush around them. Those last two cannon-blasts had been close and Heymans could have sworn that he'd heard Mustang shouting something urgently, even though he hadn't been able to make out anything more than Ed's name. Regardless, it filled him with a feeling of foreboding that he could tell Havoc tacitly shared. Mustang only rarely shouted like that, his voice filled not with authority, but with sharp panic.

Whatever had happened, Heymans could only hope that they weren't too late to be of some aid.

They came to a small clearing, following the tendrils of smoke that floated upward into the heavy gray sky from the explosion sites. Heymans saw Edward standing off by himself, facing the Drachman stronghold, his shoulders hunched and heaving. Mustang was walking away from him, his face was carefully blank and as he got closer Heymans could see that it was streaked with blood from an abrasion on his brow.

Havoc raised his hand to hail him, but then he stopped when Edward suddenly loosed one of the most frightening sounds that either of them had ever heard, a scream that seemed to wash over them in a frozen wave of tangible anguish. Mustang winced at the sound as if it had pierced him through his heart, but he didn't turn until he heard the popping, electric sound of alchemy that came from Edward as he clapped his hands and fell to his knees. Mustang stiffened and then spun, the skirt of his uniform whipping around his legs as he turned.

"ED, STOP!" he shouted as he ran back toward him. Before he could get more than a few paces though, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

* * *

Roy's insides clenched in terror when he heard Ed begin the alchemy sequence. He turned to see him on his knees in the mud, sparks twitching all around him and for a moment Roy couldn't breathe. Oh no... no, no, Ed couldn't be that stupid. He couldn't think of trying to bring him back... could he?

The ground between Ed and the stronghold rumbled and buckled, then swelled upward in a veritable wall of mud, rock, and ice. The wall reared, a fifty-foot high wave of earth that flickered with the blue light of Ed's manic power. The quaking ground threw Roy off his feet but Hawkeye caught him before he could fall. He struggled upright again, lurching toward Edward—trying to stay focused through the dizzy pain in his skull, the shifting ground at his feet, and the sudden fear in his chest. What was Ed doing? He wasn't trying to resurrect his brother as Roy had thought in those first terrifying moments after he'd begun the transmutation. This was something else entirely, but somehow something just as frightening. A raw kind of power spilled from Edward's crouched form, a cold radiation fueled by sorrow, hate, and adrenaline.

Ed cried out again and the animated earth surged forward, growing as it collected rocks and trees into itself, tearing up and consuming everything it its path. It swelled and hit the side of the Drachman stronghold, instantly flowing over the top of it and crushing the men who had murdered Edward's brother with their cannons. The dozens of men who had been guarding the front of the stronghold had been completely obliterated as well, their brief screams silenced by a quick end. Roy could feel the power rolling off of Edward as he brought the wave up and slammed it down again, the immeasurable weight of the mud cracking the stone walls of the structure.

Roy couldn't do anything but stare, his body frozen with awe and his thoughts jumbled by both fear and injury. He had never seen anything like this. Not even in Ishbal. Even with the red stones that they'd been given, none of the State Alchemists in that terrible war would have been able to something so awesome as this.

Ed brought the wave of earth up again, the strain of controlling it making the tendons in his neck stretch hard under his skin. His face was intense, unspeakable in its anguished rage as he committed every ounce of himself to the act of violent revenge. His teeth were bared, saliva-streaked lips pulled back in a feral roar as he screamed his murderous agony to the sky. His amber eyes were bright, looking almost demonically red in the light of his transmutation. Roy could have almost sworn that they were glowing, as frightening as they looked.

Edward's nose was starting to bleed, running red down over his bared teeth. Roy stumbled forward a few more paces over the rocking ground, trying to get to him. He wouldn't be able to survive exerting this kind of power for much longer; if he kept going, the energy that he was giving to his hellish attack would take too much and kill him. Then again, perhaps that was the whole point.

"EDWARD!" he shouted, part of him knowing that he wouldn't be able to hear him over his frantic alchemic tantrum. Unsurprisingly, Ed didn't respond and instead forced the mountain of mud down onto the stronghold once more, finally collapsing it, killing every enemy soldier housed within in mere seconds. If the weight of the earth didn't kill them, then asphyxiation would surely do it and Roy couldn't deny the dark thrill of sated vengeance that ran down his spine at the thought.

He grabbed Edward by the shoulders and hauled him to his feet, breaking his contact with the earth. His vast weapon of mud broke apart and fell still, almost entirely burying the Drachman stronghold with dark mud.

The silence that filled the battlefield now was harsh and grating somehow, vibrating against the eardrums. Heavy. Ed alone broke the silence, his entire body heaving each time he took a breath. He gasped, his shoulders shaking under Roy's firm grip, from both exhaustion and yet-unspent emotion.

"...Good work, Fullmetal," was all that Roy could think to say, trying to dispel the horrified silence of the soldiers standing around them, staring. "I think you may have just single-handedly ended this war..."

He hoped that no one noticed how his voice wavered.

It took Ed several seconds to tear his eyes away from the spot where his brother was still strewn—the whole area had been miraculously untouched by Ed's destructive hands. When he finally did turn his head to look up over his shoulder at Roy, his eyes were completely unfamiliar. The boy he'd known for so long was suddenly a stranger. He even _looked_ different somehow; much of his hair had come undone from his ponytail and obscured half his face, clinging to the muddy tear-tracks on his cheeks. The blood under his nose had smeared down over his mouth, darkening his lips and daubing his teeth. His visible eye was shadowed and wide, with only the barest hint of recognition as it met Roy's gaze.

"_You..._" Ed whispered, his voice breathy and hitched.

His back heaved again as if he might be sick, but then in a swift movement he half-turned and raised his arm, quickly digging the mouth of his gun into Roy's neck.

Roy went still and let his expression harden into a dark kind of calm.

Ed wouldn't really shoot him. Roy knew that, but from the sharp curses and the sounds of guns being cocked all around him he could tell that his men did not. Even Hawkeye had already taken aim, only too willing to take Edward down if it was required of her.

"Put it down, Ed," Roy warned him quietly, one hand still resting on his trembling shoulder. "You're hysterical. You don't really want to do this."

"Shut up!" he shouted, turning to face him completely and backing up a few paces, the gun that he had never once drawn before now aimed at Roy's chest. "Don't you f-fucking talk to me! You killed my brother!"

"Edward, you know that I didn't—"

"SHUT UP!" he screeched again, aiming back up at Roy's face, holding the gun in both hands, his finger tensed on the trigger. Roy went silent, not wanting to anger him further—this situation was bad enough... Not for Roy, he really wasn't that worried about himself... but for Ed. Hawkeye looked ready to kill him, inching steadily closer—and she didn't miss. That, and all these soldiers standing around them were witnesses to the attempted assassination of their Fuhrer; even if Ed dropped the gun now, he might still face jail-time for treason.

"Don't make me shoot you, Fullmetal," Hawkeye said. She was almost at Roy's side, now, keeping her voice low and soothing as she spoke. "Just put the gun down."

"Fuck you! This has nothing to do with you!" He was crying now, shaking convulsively in his manic grief, the gun in his hands wavering slowly downward. "Look what he's _done_! Look at what he did to Alphonse!"

"Listen to me..." Roy spoke up again softly, his heart aching with sympathy. "You have to know that I never would have purposefully harmed Alphonse. He chose this path on his own. I cared for him... both of you... like s—"

"I SAID _SHUT UP_!"

Something must have given him away, some kind of subtle movement, some miniscule change in posture that alerted her to what he was about to do... because she knew even before Ed fired. Hawkeye leapt forward in an instant, standing between them before either of them had seen her move, before Roy had even registered the sound of gunfire. But then she was flung backward against him, a sharp, panic-induced pain stabbing into his stomach—_sympathy pain_, he thought in that first giddy instant, when he looked down over his wife's shoulder and saw the bloody stain begin to spread across her abdomen. He cradled her in one arm before she could fall and she squeezed off a round at Edward. Her aim went low, missing him entirely.

Roy looked up at Ed, shocked into speechlessness by what he had just done. Ed looked just as horrified, mouth slightly agape as he lowered his gun. They stared at each other for a long, nauseated beat, eyes locked. Then, without really even thinking about it—without thinking about himself, or his men, or this war, or anything that was not his Riza—Roy called a spark to his unencumbered hand and sent a bolt of fire screeching.

It hit Ed in the side of his face and he went down hard, shrieking as the flames consumed his flesh.

Roy turned back to the woman in his arms, uncaring of Edward's screams, ignoring the soldiers who rushed forward to put out the fire and keep him down. He sank with her to the ground and she looked up at him, her face gray and confused-looking.

"I missed," she said, moving her hand down to the hole in her stomach, applying pressure. The blood ran freely from between her slender fingers. She still held her gun in her other hand, but her grip had loosened and the barrel of it was resting in the mud. "I _never_ miss."

"Y-yeah, you did," he stammered, his heart hammering. "But I'll allow it this time. You _were_ just shot, after all... I got him, though."

"Were you hit?"

"No..."

Her eyelids drooped shut. "Good."

"No, don't close your eyes," he pleaded, horrorstruck. "Love, look at me."

She sighed and opened one eye. "You act as if I've never b-been shot before," she commented dryly, her voice entirely too calm and reasonable in spite of its sudden, uncharacteristic weakness.

_Not like this_, he wanted to tell her, but he just clenched his jaw and said, "Forgive me. My head hurts."

"...My stomach hurts, but you don't hear m-me... complaining."

He forced himself to give a thin little laugh, feeling like he was going to throw up.

* * *

Jean and Breda skidded to a halt in the slick mud and hit their knees next to their Fuhrer.

"Shit..." Breda hissed as they both looked down at Hawkeye. She looked bad. She looked real bad.

"Call the medic," Mustang said tightly, his eyes almost childlike in their fear as he hovered over his bleeding wife.

"We just sent someone to get them," Jean assured him, "They'll be here soon."

"No need to rush on m-my account," Hawkeye joked quietly, the strain of keeping herself composed visibly taking a toll on her.

"Don't talk anymore," Mustang told her gently, ghosting his hand over hers to help her hold the wound.

She swallowed hard, then dropped her gun to reach over and remove his hand. "Sir, you need to go. Your m-men need you more than I do right now. There could still be enemies hiding."

"...You're hurt," he said, looking slightly annoyed by her suggestion. "I'm not going to leave you just because—"

"I'll be fine, _Fuhrer_," she interrupted him, putting a hard emphasis on his title, reminding him of who he was. "The medic is coming you'll just be in their way."

"In the way?" he asked her with a soft smile, feigning incredulity. "How rude. You're making it very difficult for me to feel sorry for you."

She smiled back gently then tilted her head in the direction of the other soldiers standing around them, waiting for orders. They all knew that Mustang had to go.

"I'll be fine, sir. You have work to do."

He bit his lip, but then nodded. She was right. Like always.

"You two stay with her," he told Jean and Breda, still looking down at Hawkeye. "Go with her back to camp when the medics arrive."

"Sir."

He swallowed and gently pressed his lips to her forehead before getting back to his feet. He reeled for a moment, putting a hand to his bleeding head woozily, but then balanced himself and walked back toward his other men, many of whom were gathered around Fullmetal's writhing, moaning form.

Jean could almost feel how hard that was for him to keep from looking back at her as he walked away.

Hawkeye gasped and cringed the moment he was out of earshot, her hard-won composure finally stretched too thin for her to hold it any longer. She moaned and tried to roll over onto her side.

"No, don't move..." Breda tried to tell her, but then he fell silent when he saw all of the blood that had been pooling under her. The mud glistened red with it in the dull grey light and the back of her uniform was completely saturated.

"W-went all the way through..." she panted as Jean and Breda stared at the bloody, ragged hole in the middle of her back where the bullet had torn its way back out of her.

Jean swore and leaned forward to press his hand hard against the exit wound. She grunted at the added pain but didn't say anything more as she weakly held the entrance wound in her stomach, curling in on herself.

She hadn't wanted Mustang to know, Jean realized. She didn't want him to know that her injury was this bad... and it _was_ bad. He had a country to lead, and the last thing she wanted to do was distract him from that. She had worked so hard to help get him where he was, and she could not let him fail now... especially not because of her.

She was his wife, yes, but she was also a soldier to the end and she refused to compromise her Fuhrer's focus, no matter what that meant for her.

"...Just lie still, Hawkeye. The medic will be here soon," Jean said quietly, already knowing that it might not really matter how fast they got here at this point.

She closed her eyes calmly, resigned, listening to Edward crying softly for his brother.


	4. Blood

Roy strode forward, trying not to stumble too much. He imagined that he could feel Hawkeye's eyes on his back and no matter how much his head hurt or how dizzy and nauseated the blow had made him, he could not let her see him fall. Not after what she had sacrificed to keep him standing.

He stopped briefly by the group of men who were encircling Edward's sprawled body, guns still drawn on him even though he wasn't trying to fight back anymore. He just lay there, curled in the mud, whimpering like a sick dog, occasionally moaning Al's name from the depths of his sorrowful mania.

The burned half of Ed's face was still steaming a little, the ruined flesh already starting to swell up from beneath the layer of charred skin, cracking it with clammy lines of red. Roy couldn't see the injury very clearly from this angle, but it was obvious that there was no saving a good portion of his face. His left eye was basically gone and what little was left of his ruptured, deflated eyeball would have to be removed. Roy looked down at him for another moment, just listening to his soft crying, then turned and continued on his path toward the stronghold, trying to tell that sick feeling in his stomach that he didn't feel sorry for him. It was his own fault.

"Velasco, Caldwell, Thompson. You three come with me," he ordered over his shoulder to some of the soldiers guarding Edward. "Medics have been called. The rest of you make sure that Fullmetal gets the care he needs, but don't take your eyes off of him even for a second."

"Yes, sir."

He didn't reply, just kept going forward, leaving both Ed and Hawkeye behind and not daring to give in to the temptation to look back at them. He had work to do still. Once the medics got here they would all go back to camp, but in the meantime Roy walked as steadily as he could toward the conquered stronghold in the distance. He knew without even going one step closer that they weren't going to find any survivors within that destroyed building, but his station as the leader of this army insisted that he check. Anyone found alive would be taken prisoner, used to help in the peace negotiations with Drachma... and he needed all the help that he could get.

The battle was over, but the war raged on. That thought suddenly weighed heavy on his soul, though he'd known all along that this skirmish was nowhere near then end of this trial. He just wanted it to be over. He just wanted to go home and go to bed and go to sleep and not have to think about anything... to not have to picture Alphonse giving him that final salute... to not have to walk passed the crater where chunks of his body were still smoking... or to see the madness flashing in Edward's eyes... or see Hawkeye lying in the mud, bloodied and in pain...

No, he _couldn't_ think about that. Not now.

Roy grimaced and placed his hand against his own abdomen, gripping the fabric of his jacket as he unwillingly thought of her wound. His jacket was soaked with her blood, the wetness already going cold in the frigid air. His own stomach hurt sharply, probably from when Hawkeye had fallen against him. Maybe she's elbowed him in the gut as she'd been thrown back by the gunfire—his mind was a little fuzzy at the moment, so he couldn't be sure. He'd likely have a nasty bruise there in the morning, going from how much it hurt.

More worrisome than that though, was how much his poor head was spinning. He felt pretty certain that he had a concussion, though he couldn't be entirely sure until he saw the medic. Whatever the case, every step he took was becoming more and more difficult. He was woozy and nauseated and felt like he couldn't quite think straight. His mind was going a mile a minute, but in a lurching, chaotic way: each thought disappearing almost as quickly as it manifested.

Then again, such fragmented disruption of thought could very well be caused by the loss of one of his dearest subordinates, his wife's serious injury, and the fact that another of his closest allies had tried to kill him in a fit of anguished insanity.

A bubble of sudden, inappropriate laughter threatened to force itself from his throat, but he quelled it quickly.

God, what a ridiculously shitty day. He almost couldn't believe that so many terrible events could happen all at once. Things couldn't possibly get any worse than they already were, could they?

He shook his head and rubbed his sore and suddenly blurry eye. No point in dwelling on it. There would be time for that later...

His skull abruptly gave a particularly excruciating twinge and he grimaced, putting a hand to the bloody side of his head.

"...Fuhrer Mustang?"

He opened his eye again to see Private Thompson standing close to him, looking into his face worriedly.

"Are you alright, sir? You look pale..."

Roy grunted and lowered his hand. "Fine, Private. I just..."

But then he trailed off, looking around. He was standing on the bottom steps of the wide stone staircase leading up to the stronghold, the men around him searching for a way in amongst the heaps of misplaced earth and the bodies of Drachman soldiers that had been thrown from the top of the modest fort during Fullmetal's attack. Bewildered, he looked back behind him, where he could see Havoc and Breda far, far in the distance, helping a medic load Hawkeye into a van.

"...How did I get here...?" Roy said quietly to no one in particular, looking around.

When had they walked passed Alphonse's body...? The boy's torn remains lay far behind them, in the crater where he had been blown apart. They must have walked by it on the way here... Roy must have seen the bloodied pieces of what had been left behind... but he didn't remember.

And the medics helping Hawkeye; surely it would have taken them more than a few short minutes to get here...?

"Sir?"

Roy swallowed, his stomach churning as another sharp bolt of pain shot into his skull. "I think I blacked out..." he muttered. "I don't remember getting here."

Thompson stared at him for a moment as if in mild confusion, but then his dark eyes widened slightly. "Sir, your ear is bleeding..."

Roy blinked, then brought his hand up to his ear. His gloved fingers—already stained with blood—came away wet with yet another coat of bright red.

"...That's probably not good..." he managed woozily before the encroaching darkness that was beginning to throb at the corner of his eye completely overtook him.

The shock of cold mud against his side made him gasp. The world had turned sideways and he was suddenly on the ground, Thompson and the other men shouting in dismay as they rolled him over onto his back.

"Ah, shit...! Fuhrer? Sir...?"

Roy looked up at them blearily, all three of them kneeling next to him in the mud. The sky beyond their anxious faces was beginning to darken as the afternoon wore on to evening, a few rogue snowflakes drifting downward like specks of dust in a dimly-lit attic.

"I think I'm more badly injured than I'd first assumed," he informed them calmly, though even his own voice sent shards of cold glass stabbing into his temple.

And... god_damn_... his stomach was really starting to hurt.

* * *

Riza watched him for as long as he could, until he was far out of sight and the haziness of her eyes had become too pronounced for her to focus on his retreating form. She blinked and her gaze cleared a little, forcing warm tracks of moisture out from beneath her eyelids.

He would be alright.

She had made a promise to help get him to the top, and now he was there. He didn't need her anymore, she rationed. He had achieved what he had set out to achieve—what she had _sworn_ to help him achieve—and now the rest was up to him.

He was going to be fine.

Everything was going to be fine.

* * *

Heymans Breda looked up as two men stumbled into the compound, heading toward the medical tent. It was Mustang, staggering forward with the help of one of the men he'd taken with him to the stronghold. The lieutenant's stomach sank.

"...I'll tell him," he said to Havoc gravely. Havoc quietly agreed. Fuery and Falman didn't say anything at all, just stared after their Fuhrer for a moment silently before turning their gazes back down to their mud and ice-encrusted boots. Heymans swallowed and jogged forward quickly, the cold air he breathed in doing nothing to soothe the tightness in his chest.

Mustang looked up as he approached. His eye was hazy and looked as if it was struggling to focus on him as he came near. There was dried blood trailing from his ear and down his pale neck where it soaked into the collar of his uniform. Heymans' stomach clenched even tighter with sudden fear.

"Mustang, are you okay?" he asked urgently, taking him by the arm. The soldier leading him relinquished his own hold and let Heymans support him.

"Yeah... yeah," he murmured. "Ed just must've hit me harder than I thought."

"He's having black-outs..." the private supplied, still eyeing his Fuhrer with concern. "And he keeps losing track of what's going on. Fullmetal might have cracked his skull."

"I'm fine..." Mustang insisted, though he didn't sound too sure on that. He tried to take a step away from Heymans and abruptly lost his balance, but luckily the lieutenant was still holding onto his arm and quickly hoisted him back onto his feet. Mustang wavered and grabbed Heymans' arm in return, leaning his brow against the bigger man's shoulder for stability. "...Just lemme lean against you for a minute," he groaned finally. "The world is spinning."

Heymans agreed immediately with a startled grunt and wrapped an arm around his back to support him. The man was shaking and breathing hard and his skin was entirely too pale, almost greenish. He looked like he was trying not to vomit.

"Go tell the medics that he's here," Heymans said quietly to the soldier, nodding in the direction of the tent. "I'll bring him in a minute; I need to speak with him first."

"Yes, sir," the man saluted, casting one last glance at his superior before turning to obey his order.

Silence fell between the two remaining men for a moment. Mustang was still panting; his hike back from the stronghold had obviously taken a toll on him. His face was sheened with sweat from his exertion, but he was still shivering in the cold air. Heymans frowned at that. If he didn't know better, he'd say that Mustang was suffering from heavy blood-loss rather than just a bumped head... his head wound didn't appear to be bleeding that much, though. It looked as if it had already stopped, as had the blood-trail from his ear. The front of is uniform was bloodied as well, but all of that was likely Hawkeye's...

"Where are Fullmetal and Major Hawkeye...?" Mustang suddenly asked without raising his head, his voice muffled against Heymans' shoulder.

Heymans' throat went dry. He cleared it with a nervous little cough. "The medics just started working on Ed. They have him in the tent right now."

"And Hawkeye?"

When Heymans didn't say anything, Mustang raised his head and looked at him. His gaze was woozy and confused. It was the gaze of a sick child seeking reassurance.

Oh, this was going to be hard...

"...Breda?"

Heymans cleared his throat again, steeling himself. "Sir... Hawkeye, she..."

"Fuhrer Mustang."

Both Heymans and Mustang looked over to see Fuery slowly stepping over to them, his eyes bright with tears.

* * *

It was heartbreaking to watch them, even from this distance. Kain Fuery toyed with the filthy cuff of his uniform absently as he saw Breda put one arm around Mustang and hold him, no doubt comforting him against the heavy sorrow that had just been dumped upon him.

Kain, Havoc, and Falman were all standing back a ways, too far to hear what they were saying over the breathy moan of the snow-flecked wind, but they didn't need to hear. They already knew what they were talking about. Mustang had his face buried against Breda's shoulder and the lieutenant's face was tight with grief...

He shouldn't have to do this alone.

Kain straightened from his post of leaning against a stack of empty crates and strode forward, not looking at either Havoc or Falman as he passed them. His eyes were trained on Mustang's trembling form as he raised his head and looked at Breda, speaking his name. Breda began a reply, but Kain gently interrupted him.

"Fuhrer Mustang," he called out softly when he was close enough. They both turned to look at him, their faces a ghostly kind of pale in the looming evening. Mustang's face was smeared with blood and mud, his wet hair clinging to his soiled eye patch. He was the very antithesis of what he had been mere days ago: well-manicured and pristine, whole and well, a newlywed, the fearless personification of a world power...

And now he was this: trembling, dirty, and alone, looking as if he could barely stay on his feet under his own power. Kain's eyes flooded at the thought, wanting nothing more than to comfort him, as Breda was.

"She went very quickly, sir..." he began, his voice shaking with the need to reassure Mustang even the littlest bit, even if he had next to nothing to offer him in the face of the horrible tragedy that had struck him. "The medics said that she was calm the whole time, and probably wasn't feeling much by the end... She just..."

But then Kain trailed off, his sincere condolences cut short by a horrified look from Breda. Mustang just stared at him for a few beats blankly, but then what little color the frigid winds had gifted his grayish face with vanished, blanching his skin to a sickly bone-white.

"...She _died_?" he breathed.

Kain balked, his sick stomach plummeting even lower as he immediately realized his mistake. Oh god...

Breda hadn't told him yet.

Mustang turned his horrified eyes over to Breda for confirmation and he gave him a small, sad nod. _Yes, your wife is dead._

The Fuhrer didn't do anything for what seemed like a long time. He just stood there, still partially leaning against Breda, staring into space... perhaps watching the snow fall around him, the quantity of which had been steadily increasing for the past several minutes and now acted as a kind of veil that enshrouded the three of them, curtaining them off from the rest of the world. The silence was unbearable.

But then he nodded, slowly, expressionlessly.

"I'm sure that you and Havoc did what you could," he said quietly, patting Breda on the shoulder briefly before stepping back from him a little unsteadily. Then he turned and headed toward the medical tent, toward where he knew Ed must be, drawing his gun as he went.

"Sir, don't!" Breda begged him, knowing—as Kain knew, as Havoc and Falman knew as they came running up behind him—exactly what was on his mind. But Mustang didn't stop. There was a terrifying glint in his eye that whispered of murderous, unspeakable things and he continued forward, his finger already taut on the trigger. _Equivalent Exchange_, that gaze said. _A life for a life_.

Breda went after him and grabbed him by the wrist. Mustang twisted and struggled hard, so Breda reached an arm around his waist to drag him back away from the tent. As Breda yanked him backward, Mustang abruptly gasped and his legs gave out from under him. He doubled over in Breda's arms, cursing and panting, his eyes shut tightly as if he were in a great deal of pain.

It took Kain a moment to understand why.

* * *

"Sir, are you bleeding...?" Heymans asked tightly as he pulled his arm away from Mustang's abdomen, his sleeve suddenly marred with dark spots of fresh blood.

Mustang raised a hand to the dried blood caked to his earlobe. "Thompson said that it stopped..." he panted woozily, something in his voice suddenly alerting Heymans to the fact that he wasn't all there at the moment, as if he was on the verge of another blackout. He didn't look good, for reasons that he was sure had nothing to do with his dead wife.

Mustang's ear _had_ stopped bleeding, but that wasn't anywhere near where this new blood was coming from. Heymans gently pushed Mustang back a little and, clearly not in his right mind, the Fuhrer didn't fight him. Heymans pulled up the man's uniform to reveal his bloodied stomach and stiffened as he gazed upon the perfectly round hole that had torn itself into the right side of his abdomen.

_What the hell...?_

"...Sir," Heymans began, disbelieving, "I think that you've been shot."

Mustang looked down at himself and, to Heymans' unsettled surprise, he grinned like a madman.

"Breda, I think that this has _literally_ been the worst day of my life," he said, his voice trembling with dark humor and perhaps mild delirium. "E-every time I think it can't get any worse..."

He chuckled to himself quietly, his eye suddenly shining a little too brightly. But then his eye closed and his shaking ceased. He fell limp against Heymans' chest, blissful unconsciousness taking him once more.

Mustang's staff didn't waste any time in picking him up and rushing him into the medical tent, just hoping that he'd stay out cold long enough for the medics to properly sedate him, drugging him before he could see Edward's own unconscious body lying on the surgeon's table beside his.


	5. Talking

_((A/N: Insane semester was insane. But it's over now, so I hope to update this thing more frequently.))_

* * *

They were talking. They were always talking. All they ever did was fucking _talk_. Talk talk talk talk _talk_.

"Mr. Elric, do you not understand what trouble you're in?" Mr. Rembrandt said, pushing his glasses up his thin nose. The glasses almost immediately slid back down again and he frowned. "I can't help you if you don't talk to me and give me your side of the story."

Ed didn't say anything.

The bandages on his face itched.

The light coming in though the barred window glinted off of the metal framing the man's glasses. Mr. Rembrandt pushed them up again, starting to get angry.

"I _know_ you can hear me, Mr. Elric."

Silence.

Ed leaned his head back against the wall, wishing that he had a free hand so that he could scratch the damaged skin under his antiseptic-smeared bandages. But they'd taken his automail from him long before he'd even awoken from surgery back at the border. And his other hand was completely immobilized at the moment, securely bound in the straightjacket he was wearing.

The thin-nosed lawyer sighed explosively. "He's making this rather difficult, Miss Rockbell."

"Well... The doctors say he hasn't spoken a word since... since... what happened." Winry's voice was soft and apologetic, still raw from crying all morning. She was always crying. Crying and talking to Ed. "He's only just met you... maybe he just needs some time to get used to—"

"So he hasn't spoken to you, either?"

Ed saw Winry's slender throat twitch as she swallowed. "No. Not a word in over a week. Not since Al died."

Mr. Rembrandt gave another, much softer sigh, his frustration deflating a little.

"I _am_ sorry for your loss, Miss Rockbell... You hired me to represent Mr. Elric in his murder trial and I intend to do it to the best of my ability." He took his glasses off and rubbed his face, brushing his thin gray hair off of his brow. "As things are, our best option may be to reach for an insanity plea... Not to be unkind, but his behavior—"

"I'm not insane."

Winry and Mr. Rembrandt both jumped a little and turned to face him. Even the guard standing beyond the cell door straightened with sudden interest at the sound of his voice, after so many days of silence. Winry jumped out of the chair that she had seated near the head of his bunk and sat on the mattress beside him, reaching over to touch the unblemished side of his face.

"Ed? It's me, it's Winry..."

Her voice was so full. Full of what, Ed wasn't entirely sure... but it was heavy. Bloated somehow. Crushing and suffocating. He felt like he couldn't breathe.

"I'm not insane, Winry. Tell him I'm not," he implored her, his voice grating in his throat from days of silence. His heart was suddenly beating so hard that it almost hurt. She had to understand, she had to make this asshole listen... make them all listen. "I'm not insane. Mustang said so, he said Al thought I was crazy, but I'm _not_. I'm not, I'm not. Tell him. Tell him, Winry."

"O-okay..." she promised him timidly, her bright eyes moistening with tears again. She looked sick, moving her hand over to stroke his hair out of his face. "It's okay, Ed... It's going to be all right."

"I wanna talk to Mustang," he continued frantically, feeling abruptly claustrophobic in the straightjacket. He tried to shift himself so that he was more comfortable, but that only reminded him of how little he was able to move at the moment and intensified his panic. The air in the cell was stale and tasted of mud and blood and he swore that he could smell the sulfur from the missiles still, that stench that had taken Alphonse. "I wanna t-talk to him..."

The lawyer hesitated a moment, then: "Mr. Elric, I don't think that—"

"_I want to talk to Mustang!_" he shrieked, throwing his head back against the wall and closing his eye as tightly as he could.

Winry and Mr. Rembrandt exchanged a glance, then the man turned and nodded to the guard in the doorway.

"Get the Fuhrer's office on the phone."

* * *

God, the office was so quiet. It was unnerving.

Jean sighed to himself. He looked over at Hawkeye's desk, the dark wood almost completely obscured by various bouquets of flowers—many of which Mustang had purchased, others that had been sent by well wishers. His jaw tightened and he made himself look away for perhaps the hundredth time this week and instead turned his sad gaze back to the Fuhrer. Mustang was sitting quietly at his desk, the watery sunlight from the overcast sky shining in weakly from the huge, ceiling-high window at his back, casting him in a sad, gray coldness.

Mustang had only needed to stay in the hospital for another day or so after they got back to Central. He'd slept most of the way here, curled on the bench behind Breda's driver's seat, sedated by whatever medicines the medics kept shoving down his throat and pumping into his arm. The medics had wanted him to ride the whole way back to HQ in the medical van with the rest of the injured so that they could keep a trained eye on him, but he'd refused. He hadn't wanted to be confined to the same vehicle as Edward... and Jean didn't blame him.

Hardly anyone spoke through the entire drive back, though Jean noticed that Fuery had started weeping just about every time he looked over at Mustang—he still hadn't forgiven himself for so tactlessly informing his superior of his wife's death, and his quiet depression in the office was just as deep as Mustang's. Mustang, for his part, had just closed his eyes and tried to ignore the way they all kept glancing at him sympathetically. Sleep had been his only solace then, and so he slept deeply.

Jean looked up again as he saw Mustang wince. The Fuhrer leaned over his paper-strewn desk and closed his eye tightly, bringing his hand up and gently massaging his brow, trying to lessen the pain in his head. The doctors had said that he was going to be fine, but Edward had hit him hard enough to fracture his skull, the crack going from his temple to his ear-canal. It must hurt like hell, but there wasn't much he could do about it other than try to keep the throbbing under control with pills and just wait for it to heal. He really shouldn't even be back at work yet; he needed to just stay home and rest, according to the doctors, but Mustang had been adamant about coming back... And no one could really make him do otherwise—he _was_ the Fuhrer, after all.

At least Mustang's bullet-wound was faring quite a bit better than his head... Apparently, the bullet hadn't gone in very far. It had bled a lot, but the wound was shallow, mostly contained to the surface abdominal muscles and not going in deeply enough to threaten any of his internal organs... But that was only because its forward momentum had been slowed greatly by its passage though Hawkeye's poor body before it could strike him.

Jean's stomach lurched, turning once again at the thought. It made him so ill to think about it... and the look on Mustang's face when he'd realized that the bullet that had pierced him had first pierced his wife... that the object that had killed her had rested within him for nearly an hour before anyone knew it was there... Jean shuddered. He'd never seen anyone look so completely anguished before that moment... but, worse than that, was how quickly Mustang was able to hide his sick horror. Jean had seen only a glimpse of it before it was gone, locked behind Mustang's impenetrable exterior. Then he had just lain back on the makeshift hospital bed in the medics' tent and closed his eye.

He hadn't said a thing about it since, but Jean could see that it was constantly on his mind.

How could it not be?

He hadn't even spoken her name since the eulogy. Not hers or Al's. He hadn't even allowed himself to weep at their funerals. It was if he just wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, and that just made it all the more sad. Still, he had brought flowers to place on Hawkeye's desk every day this week; every morning he stood in front of her vacant workspace as he put a new vase down on the wooden surface. He'd take a deep, shuddering breath before turning to his own desk to begin the day's work.

This, Jean knew, was the full extent of his grieving. He allowed himself nothing more than that brief moment and that pained sigh, as badly as everyone in the office knew he just needed to take a few days off and mourn. As much as they knew he needed it so that he could start healing and move on, though, no one had the courage to say anything to him.

None of them had ever had to deal with this before. Mustang's grief and frustrations had always been vented on Brigadier General Hughes or Colonel Hawkeye—as she was pronounced posthumously—but now both of them were gone and he had no one left. None of the rest of them were close enough to him to dare to initiate that kind of intimacy, and so no one did.

But things could not go on like this. Mustang's obvious depression was contagious and Jean didn't know how much longer he could just stand by and watch him fumble through his paperwork and press-conferences every day, too distracted by his wife's death to deal with everything that was demanded of him as Fuhrer. One way or another, something was going to give... and Jean didn't know what he would do when that happened.

* * *

The telephone on Roy's desk rang shrilly. He clenched his teeth and groaned against the sudden bolts of pain it shot into his head.

The loud ringing cut off quickly as Breda answered it from his desk and Roy sighed in gratitude. God, if that phone rang _one more time_ today he was going to throw it out the damn window.

But then he took a deep breath and made his jaw unclench. The phone had been ringing off the hook for the past several days. The Parliament kept arranging small press-conferences and reporters kept asking questions about the battle, about the peace negotiations with Drachma... they even got the occasional questions about Roy's own health, both physical and emotional.

It hadn't been officially announced before the battle that he and Hawkeye had been married, but now the cat was out of the bag and everyone in the country wanted to give him their deepest condolences. He'd been getting a steady stream of sympathy cards and letters from all over Amestris since he returned to work, but as of yet he hadn't had the willpower to read any of them. He didn't have the time or the strength. He had a country to run and his head was absolutely _killing_ him; the last thing he needed was another distraction.

"I've already given you his answer, Mr. Rembrandt," Breda was saying curtly into the telephone. "Neither you or your client are to contact the Fuhrer again. _Thank_ you."

He hung up the phone with an air of sharp annoyance that somehow seemed a little false to Roy, as if he were putting up an irritated front on Roy's behalf when all he really wanted to do was sit quietly and stare at Hawkeye's desk, like everyone else in the office caught themselves doing every few minutes. Roy didn't know whether to be grateful or insulted by the stoic gesture.

"He's already called three times since yesterday. How stupid can he be?" Breda growled to himself, turning his attentions back to his paperwork with a distant frown. "That bastard is tenacious."

Roy noticed Havoc looking over at him sidelong, as if he, too, thought that his grouchiness was an act.

"Attorneys tend to be tenacious," Roy replied softly, pretending to be reading one of the documents in front of him. "It's in the job description."

"...Yeah, I guess."

Silence fell in the room again. Fuery sniffled a little at his desk in the corner, breaking the quiet, and Roy cringed inwardly. Fuery was not handling this situation as gracefully as the rest of Roy's men were. He was a sensitive soul and he felt guilty about what he'd accidentally revealed outside of the medical tent that day, but Roy hadn't yet summoned the strength to talk to him about it. He wasn't ready to talk about anything relating to Hawkeye. Not _yet_, anyway... so Fuery was just going to have to wallow in guilt for a little longer, because Roy just didn't want to deal with it.

He sighed and signed the document without really reading it, giving up on his attempt to wade through the bureaucratic bullshit typed on the page. He was tired, sick, in pain, and all he really wanted to do was go home, pop some prescribed narcotics, and go to bed. Maybe he'd take off early; he was sure that his staff wouldn't mind, as they'd been constantly encouraging him to take a few personal days to recover since they came back to Central.

He shifted in his seat and the stitches on his abdomen twinged slightly, reminding him that they were there—reminding him of the wound they held closed, and the cursed bullet that had caused so much damage to everyone around him. His skin crawled and he forced the vivid image of Hawkeye lying gasping in his arms to the back of his mind again.

That was the last thing he wanted to think about right now... which was the major reason why he didn't want to take bereavement leave from work. If he wasn't at work, if he was alone for days in his empty house with nothing but her clothing and her things to keep him company, then there would be nothing to keep thoughts of her—and Alphonse... and Ed, too, to some extent—at bay... and he wasn't quite ready to face that kind of grief just yet. He would face it in time but—god—not yet.

Not yet.

The phone on his desk bubbled out another searing ring and Roy hissed in pain, digging his nails into his brow as the pounding in his skull reached a scarcely tolerable pitch. Once again, Breda answered it quickly, mumbling about lawyers as he put it to his ear.

Roy rubbed his aching forehead, feeling the shallow crescent-shaped indentations that he had just pressed into his skin. He was really staring to hate that phone. Maybe he'd get the ringer disconnected... or smash the thing with a hammer. He blinked rapidly, trying to get his eye to stop watering, then took a breath and turned to one of the other copious documents stacked on the corner of his desk.

"...Sir?"

He looked up. Breda was holding his hand over the phone's mouthpiece, his farce of annoyance all but replaced by a very genuine look of sympathy.

"Yes?"

"I think you should take this. It's the coroner."

Roy's gut twinged again, but he hid any sign of discomfort from his face. Instead he gave a sharp sigh to cover his sudden sickness and reached for the phone.

When the bodies of the fallen were brought back to Central from the border, Roy had made a specific request to have Hawkeye's autopsy results given to him. At the time he had been half-mad with drugs, grief, and pain and had just wanted to make sure that the medics had done all that was humanly possible to save her... for if there had been any chance for her to survive if the medics had just done something differently...

Well, Roy just wanted to be sure that everything... _everything_... had been done to save her. He wanted no doubts that there wasn't anything more that he could have done.

"Mustang," he said into the receiver, his throat suddenly dry.

"_Good afternoon, sir. How are you today?_" the coroner asked, his old voice crackling along the phone line.

"I'd rather we not waste time on pleasantries and just get to the results if you don't mind, Doctor." Roy was very much not in the mood. He just wanted to get this over with.

There was a slight pause on the line, then: "_Colonel Riza Hawkeye's wound was fatal. Her spinal cord was grazed by the bullet, as were a cluster of major arteries. The bleeding would have been too heavy for even the most skilled surgeon to stop. Even if she had been near a hospital, there was little more that could have been done. It was a lost cause_."

Roy listened silently as the man professionally and efficiently described the mortality of his wife's wounds. So there had been no preventing her death. He closed his eye, waiting for some kind of relief to come to him. It didn't.

"_I'm sorry for your loss, Fuhrer Mustang_," the coroner continued after a long pause.

"...Thank you for taking the time to call me, Doctor," was all the Roy could think to say to him. "I appreciate it. Have a pleasant day."

"_Sir, wait_," the man began again as Roy started to hang up, desperate to be finished with this phone call. "_There was something else_."

For one soul-crushing moment, Roy almost slammed the phone down anyway. He didn't want there to be "something else". Hadn't he heard enough about his wife's mutilated body for one day? But then, slowly, he put the phone back up to his ear.

"...Yes?" he made himself ask finally.

The coroner hesitated for a split second, then quietly told Roy something that pierced him more violently than any bullet ever could.

* * *

Vato Falman was watching his superior openly. He was not bothering to hide his concerned curiosity the way his colleagues were, observing him only out of the corners of their downcast eyes.

He was no longer paying attention to them anyway. He was too absorbed by whatever the coroner had just told him. Mustang blanched and took a deep breath.

"Could... could you repeat that?" he asked, then fell silent as he listened hard to the doctor's words. He took another, shakier breath and sat back in his chair as if suddenly saddled with some kind of unbearable weight.

"Why are you telling me this?" he demanded sharply, then glanced at his staff and realized that they were listening. He turned from them and lowered his voice to a raw whisper. "What difference does it make at this point? ..._No_, I didn't want to know! How could you _possibly_ think that I'd want to know that?" He paused again to listen, then sagged and rubbed his face, "...No. No, it's fine. I apologize. Just... just keep it to yourself for now, alright? Thank you... You too... Goodbye, Doctor."

He hung up the phone slowly, then leaned his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands, resting his brow against his knuckles.

"Well, what did he say...?" Havoc asked, apparently unable to take the pressure of the mounting silence that was crushing down on all of them.

Mustang jumped a little and straightened as if he'd forgotten that he was not alone in the room. He cleared his throat. "...Said there was nothing that anyone could have done. The wounds were mortal."

"...Ah."

The Fuhrer nodded absently and went back to his paperwork.

Everyone in the room knew that that wasn't all that the coroner had said. Confirming that Hawkeye's death had not been preventable would not have upset him like this—and he _was_ upset, even if he was calmly masking it now by trying to bury his sorrow in politics and paperwork—but Vato knew that none of them were brave enough to question the man further. His secrets were his own; he'd tell them if he felt they needed to know.

The shuffling of many papers filled the air with a grating kind of white noise as everyone slowly returned to their work, stealing glances at Mustang just about every time that he moved. He was pretending to read the papers in front of him, but Vato knew from his glazed expression that his thoughts were a million miles away from the words his eye trailed over. He was out in the ether. Lost. He was chewing his lip anxiously and his fingers tapped a frantic rhythm onto his desk. Mustang was suddenly full to the brim with nervous energy, with anger and grief; everyone could see it, but no one really knew what to do about it other than try to act as if nothing was wrong.

Denial is a powerful tool for the Helpless.

The tense quiet in the room abruptly shattered as the telephone began its screaming ring again. Mustang's jaw clenched and he stared over at it, his cycloptic gaze contorting in an instant to something wild and dreadful, something akin to the murderous way that Fullmetal had stared at him on the battlefield just before pulling his gun.

By the time the telephone had reached its second ring it was airborne. It smashed hard into the huge window behind Mustang's desk and the glass shattered. Mustang was on is feet in front of the falling glass, his arm still arched from his throw as he watched the glittering shards explode outward and rain down toward the Earth several stories below them.

He turned from the destruction slowly, back heaving, his uniform billowing in the breeze that had so abruptly been granted entrance to the office from between the teeth of the shattered window.

"I need to speak with Ed," he said, his tone dangerously low, then calmly walked past them out of the office.

It took them all several seconds to collect themselves enough to run after him.

Fuery trailed behind a little, uncertain. Vato put a hand across his back and gently coaxed him out into the hallway, where they could see Mustang disappear around a corner.


	6. Sacrifice

Kain was sick.

He didn't want to follow Mustang. He didn't want to witness his confrontation with Edward but Falman pulled him along, occasionally glancing over at him with sympathy.

All of Mustang's men were grieving. They were all distraught over this sudden deluge of loss; _three_ of their comrades had been taken from them, by death or imprisonment, and their absence was like a constant ache that could not be soothed. Kain himself hadn't slept more than a few restless hours since their journey to the border, and he could see by the bloodshot eyes of his fellows that he wasn't alone.

...But Kain knew that none of them, other than Mustang, felt the loss as deeply as he did. The way that Mustang had stared at him when he'd so tactlessly told him of his wife's death haunted Kain every time he closed his eyes. And whenever Mustang looked at him, every time their eyes met across the office... he just wanted to die. He couldn't stand seeing that quiet, unbearable pain in his gaze... and then Mustang hadn't even known the full extent of his loss yet.

But now he knew. The coroner had seen to that.

Kain knew, too. He knew the dark secret that the coroner had just uncovered and revealed to his Fuhrer, a secret that he had hoped that Mustang would never have to know. Not like this, at least.

He remembered that day—god, it hadn't even been two weeks ago, had it? He and Hawkeye had been alone in the office...

_Kain looked down at the calendar in front of him, trying to rearrange the monthly agenda around their upcoming battle with Drachma. They would be leaving for the border tomorrow and no one knew how long they would be there, so Second Lieutenant Kain Fuery and Major Hawkeye were responsible for completely re-working Fuhrer Mustang's agenda: canceling meetings, rescheduling press-conferences, and generally just making sure that everything was covered before they left._

_He frowned as he looked down at Monday the twelfth._

"_Sorry, Major..." he said as he crossed out her request for a morning off written under the date, "Cancel whatever plans you had for the twelfth, because I think we'll need you at the border."_

_She smirked and looked up from her own work. "I already have. It was just a doctor's appointment, anyway."_

"_Doctor's appointment?" Kain asked, arching an eyebrow at her, "For what?"_

"_Just a few tests." Her answer was flippant and she went immediately back to her work. Something about her flippancy, though, gave Kain pause._

"_...What kind of tests? Are you... okay?"_

_She smiled again, softly. "I'm fine. I just think that I might... possibly... be more than fine."_

_And then, to his complete and utter shock, she blushed and ducked her head like a coy schoolgirl. He stared at her blankly, startled by the pink tint to her cheeks. He hadn't even known that Hawkeye was even _capable_ of blushing. Kain himself flushed any time he got even just a little bit flustered—he blamed it on his fair complexion—but he'd never thought to see such modest color on _Hawkeye_ of all people..._

_And what did she mean by "more than fine"...?_

_But then it hit him—in a giddy kind of jolt and he immediately felt his cheeks warm with a deep flush of his own._

"_Hawkeye...? Are... are you pregn—"_

"_Shh!" she silenced him, looking toward the half-open door of the Fuhrer's inner office, where her new husband was—presumably—finalizing their Drachma attack strategy with Breda and Alphonse. "He'll hear you."_

_Kain's mouth went dry, then quirked up into a disbelieving grin. "Well, _are_ you?"_

_She looked down at her paperwork primly, but a mischievous smile remained firmly on her lips. "If I knew that for sure then I wouldn't need the doctor to test me, now would I?"_

"_But you _think_ you are."_

_She shrugged impishly._

"_And you haven't told him yet?"_

"_I'll tell him once I know for sure. Until then, you keep your mouth shut, understand?" she threatened playfully, her eyes sparkling._

_Kain gave her a mock-salute, his heart full to bursting. "Yes, ma'am."_

She never came back from the battle, though. She was never able to go to the doctor to get tested. She was never able to tell Mustang. But Kain knew... deep, deep in his soul... what a beautiful, terrible thing that the coroner had found in Hawkeye's body.

Kain was sick.

* * *

The guard standing in front of Edward's cell looked wary as he put his key in the lock and slid open the heavy door. Mustang strode past him into the little room, his eye fixed on the figure curled up on the bed. Ed looked up as he walked in and their gazes locked. An acidic, cloying kind of tension thickened the air and made it even harder for Jean to swallow the lump in his throat.

"That will be all, Private," the Fuhrer told the guard, not looking at him.

The guard licked his lips, nervous. He knew—as Jean knew, as they _all_ knew somehow—that something was about to happen. It wasn't that the guard didn't want to leave... he most certainly _did_, probably wanting to get away from that murderous coldness that Mustang was radiating... but it was his duty to guard Edward Elric from harming others and from being harmed, and the latter now seemed very likely.

"...With all due respect, sir," he began timidly, "I need to stay at my post. I've been assigned to watch Fullmetal and I—"

"I said, 'that will be all.'"

The guard looked back at Jean anxiously, not sure what to do. "You've been dismissed, Private," Jean said gently, giving him permission to go and tacitly letting him know that he would not be blamed for anything that happened in this room, no matter how terrible. "Are Miss Rockbell and the lawyer still in the building?"

The guard nodded, his eyes flicking back to look at Mustang.

"Keep them occupied for a while. I'm sure that the Fuhrer would to speak with Fullmetal uninterrupted."

The guard nodded again, resigned, then ducked his head and slunk away, back down the dark hallway.

Jean turned his attentions back toward the cell, back toward the man who had been fighting to keep himself in check the whole way here. As composed as Mustang was trying to be his hands were trembling slightly at his sides, his fingers twitching as if anxious to cast a flame. Jean didn't doubt that he wanted to scorch Edward again... or worse... but this time, Jean wasn't sure of whether or not he wanted to stop him.

Maybe Mustang deserved some revenge.

Maybe they just should have let him kill Edward back at the border.

They all stood just outside the doorway of the cell, hovering, not daring to enter but also not feeling as if they should leave. Mustang's broad, stiff back was toward them and he stood silently, just looking down at the boy in the straightjacket as if suddenly unsure of himself.

"_Mustang_..." Ed choked out finally. The name was slurred a little as it left his lips, as the side of his mouth had been badly damaged by Mustang's fire. The whole left side of his face was swathed in gauze and the whiteness of the bandages in conjunction with the whiteness of the straightjacket and the whiteness of the bed sheets gave Edward an eerie, ethereal glow in the rain-tinted light coming in through the window. In contrast, his one hauntingly amber eye shone as a vibrant burst of color, like a flame against a backdrop of pale clouds.

Jean shuddered.

"They're saying I'm insane!" Edward continued. His voice was strained and accusatory, both desperate and enraged. "You _lied_. You told them I was crazy, didn't you? You said that Al... you said that he thought I was crazy too, but that's a _lie_! He would never say that, he would never even _think _that...!"

Mustang just stood there and let Ed talk, watching him wordlessly, his fingertips still twitching.

"You have to tell them that it's not true... tell them that you were lying. You have to. Al would never say that, but Winry thinks... I-I know she thinks it's true. And the lawyer! That asshole wants to tell everybody at the trial. He wants everyone to know, but it's a _lie_...!"

Edward stopped, panting, drawing in stuttering, wet-sounding breaths as if he was going to be sick. Mustang regarded him silently, offering him no reply.

"...Say something!" Ed's voice cracked piteously, catching in his throat. He sat up and rocked forward onto his knees on the thin mattress, eye blazing from behind the greasy curtain of his hair. "You have to tell them before the trial! You have to—"

A sudden flurry of movement silenced him as Mustang shot forward, grabbed the injured side of Edward's head, and slammed his face hard against the wall.

"I don't have to do anything for you, Edward," he whispered, leaning in close to him, seething at his pinned him there against the rough surface just below the window. He dug his nails into the bandages on Edward's face and blood blossomed from the white gauze beneath his fingertips, the newly-healing burn tearing under the pressure. Ed shrieked like an animal and tried to wrench away, but—pinioned as he was by the straightjacket—Mustang had him completely incapacitated with just that one, frightening hand and just dragged his nails in deeper.

Ed screamed again, retching against what must have been considerable pain. Breda made as if to move into the room and stop Mustang, but Jean reached out and took his arm gently. Breda clenched his jaw didn't try to get past him; as much as he wanted to, as cruel as the sight before them was... they both knew that they shouldn't intervene.

Jean looked over his shoulder at Falman. He was watching Fuery just as closely as he was watching Ed and Mustang. Fuery himself had backed away from the door a little, holding himself and looking as if he wanted nothing more than to run back down the hallway after the guard and disappear.

Mustang tightened his talon-like grip on Ed's face again spasmodically, then twisted and threw him off of the bed. Ed hit the cold floor hard, not having the freedom of his hands to even attempt to break his fall. He just lay there, gasping, not daring to get up as Mustang towered over him, shaking with rage.

Jean had never seen him like this. Not even on the battlefield had he ever given in to his anger like this. He had always been so good at restraining himself, even under the pressures of war and unparalleled hatred. Even when he had gone after Bradley for his hand in murdering Brigadier General Hughes, Jean didn't doubt that he'd kept himself at least marginally cool and methodical. Now, though, keeping such control was a battle that Jean wasn't sure that the great Fuhrer would win.

Whatever the coroner had said to him on the phone had finally stretched his composure dangerously thin, and he knew that that delicate sheet of self-control was all that was keeping Edward alive right now.

"You have taken... _everything_ from me..." Mustang continued, trying to maintain his cold, scathing whisper even through his own obvious pain.

"W-what about what _you_ took from _me_?" Ed choked back, the defiance in his voice diminished somewhat by the pathetic way he was curled on the floor, the bandaged side of his face smearing blood across the smooth concrete. "You took my brother! You sacrificed him to that f-fucking battle just to make you look good!"

"He made his own choices!" Mustang roared down at him, "I had nothing to do with his death! But _you..._! You shot and killed my _wife_!"

Ed balked suddenly, then let his voice become soft and lamenting.

"...Th-that was an accident... I never wanted to—"

But Mustang interrupted him again, seizing him by the throat and heaving him upward. He slammed him up against the wall again, holding him off the floor by his pale, slender neck.

"Don't fuck with me, don't you _dare_ fuck with me..." Mustang warned quietly, that gossamer veil of his composure all but dissolving before Jean's very eyes. Ed's only reply was a weak choking sound as he tried and failed to suck in air past the white-gloved hand clamped around his throat.

Mustang took a deep, shuddering breath as if he too felt as if he were being slowly suffocated, and said:

"She was _pregnant_, Edward."

The sudden break in that strong voice hit Jean like a fist to the gut. The world rocked for a moment. No...

He looked back over his shoulder at his comrades, horrified. Had they heard that right? Had Mustang really just said that? At his side, Breda breathed out a desperate curse and backed slowly away from the door. Behind them, Fuery gave a quiet, nauseated-sounding sob.

Falman did nothing at all, just stared at Mustang's profile calculatingly.

"You murdered my wife and my _child_!" Mustang rasped, grief thickening his words. "And you have the audacity to ask me to speak at your trial... _and defend your sanity_...?"

He gave a disturbing, strangled little laugh and released his hold. Unbalanced by his sudden release, Ed hit the floor again unceremoniously and doubled over, gulping down air.

"There's not going to _be_ a trial," Mustang went on finally, "You don't even deserve that much of my time."

"You..." Ed protested through his gasping, "c-can't just..."

"I want you out of Central by morning," Mustang spoke over him, the words tight and shaking as they left his throat. "I don't care where you go, I just want you gone. And if you are ever spotted within fifty miles of Central again, I promise you that you will be hunted down and killed. Just pray that I'm not the one who finds you first, because I will make damn sure that it takes you a very, _very_ long time to die."

Mustang turned from him and stormed back toward the door to the cell. His men parted for him, none of them courageous enough to look him in the eye.

"W-wait!" Ed called after him and, with what appeared to be a tremendous strain on his willpower, Mustang stopped and waited.

"I'm not crazy," the teenager insisted, as if this had been the topic of their discussion, as if not a single word of what Mustang had just said to him had been heard. "Al would never say that. Say that he never said that! Admit it!"

Mustang did not deign to turn back to him, but when he finally spoke there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he had Fullmetal's full attention.

"Alphonse Elric thought that you were a psychopath. He wanted you committed. He wanted you locked up and in a straightjacket... and here you are. At least he got his dying wish."

And with that he calmly walked back down the hallway, past Breda and Falman, past where Fuery has pressed himself back against the wall, holding himself and crying softly. Breda took a steadying breath and went after him. Falman followed a moment later, stopping briefly to put a consoling hand on Fuery's arm.

Edward stared after them, stock-still where he was slumped on the floor against the wall, bloody and bruised. His eye was unimaginably huge, filled with a distressing kind of horror as he looked over at Jean.

"He's lying," he said to him breathlessly. "He is, he has to be..."

Jean cleared his throat, but didn't say anything to him. Instead he reached over and pulled the cell door closed. The locking mechanism clacked shut with a cold, echoing kind of finality.

"He's _lying_, Havoc!"

Jean ignored him. Yes, Mustang was lying. Or, at least, stretching the truth. Alphonse never wanted Ed committed... but he had known that something was wrong with his brother. He had seen, as everyone could see now, how very sick he was. Mustang knew this, but he wanted to hurt Edward... and there was nothing that he could say that would injure him more than those parting words.

Jean shoved his hands into his pockets and moved away from the door, down the hallway. Fuery was still huddled against the wall, but Jean left him there. He had a feeling that he, too, wanted to be alone right now.

"_He's lying_!" Ed shrieked to no one, over and over again, _"HE'S LYING, HE'S LYING_!"

Jean's stomach turned, and suddenly all he could think about was how much he needed a fucking cigarette.

But even when he was outside and halfway down the street, pulling long drags of tobacco into his constricting lungs and blinking tears out of his eyes, he swore that he could still hear him screaming.

* * *

Mustang had stopped just outside the prison building. The sky loomed low over the street, heavy with the promise of more rain. It had been raining for days, off-and-on, since they'd gotten back from the border.

He was leaning back against the outer wall of the brick building, eye closed. He reached up and massaged his brow with a wince. Heymans couldn't help but notice that the fingertips of his gloves were stained a hopeless shade of red, and it dragged a thin pigment of Ed's blood across Mustang's temple as his rubbed it.

Heymans heard footsteps and looked back to see Falman coming toward them down the short flight of steps leading to the prison. The tightness in his heart eased just a little, glad to know that someone else was here.

He turned back to Mustang and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Sir?" he began softly. "Are you alright?"

Mustang sighed, his breath stirring a few strands of his dark hair. "Am I supposed to be?"

"...No, I guess not."

Mustang let a silence grow between them. Heymans looked back at Falman, who shrugged. Neither of them knew what to do. This was not anything that they were used to and they didn't know how to go about making things better.

Because neither of them were Hawkeye.

Neither of them could give him what he needed, nor could they soothe the pain of his loss; the loss of his wife... and now of his unborn child, that he hadn't even known existed an hour ago.

"...I think I'm going to go home," Mustang rasped after a moment, staring off across the street. He had one hand on his abdomen absently, gently pressing against his healing bullet-wound. "I don't feel very well."

"I'll drive you," Heymans offered quickly, digging in his pockets for his keys, glad to finally be of _some_ use.

"I'd rather walk."

"Then Falman and I will walk with you."

"Alone, Lieutenant."

Heymans hesitated.

Ever since Mustang had been injured at the border by his attempted assassin, the Parliament had been a little over-protective of their Fuhrer. He'd needed body guards on occasion before, but now he could scarcely leave his house without being accompanied, by order of the government. As much as he knew that Mustang just wanted to be alone, Heymans couldn't allow him to walk the two miles to his manor by himself.

"Sir, you know you can't go alone... The Parliament—"

"_Fuck_ the Parliament, Breda!" Mustang shouted, the obvious distress that he was trying to keep inside him finally bubbling over the edge of his stoic exterior. But then he stopped himself and raked a frustrated hand through his hair. "Sorry. Just... I-it's fine. Let's just go, then."

"Sir."

Silently, the three of them walked to the car. Falman opened the back door for him and then got into the passenger's seat. Heymans got behind the wheel uneasily, adjusting the rearview mirror to focus on Mustang before he started the car and drove off.

Mustang leaned back in his seat, staring at the ceiling of the car. He was chewing his lip and his hands were fiddling with the bloodied fingers of his gloves agitatedly. He suddenly looked to Heymans like a tortured, caged animal pacing along the walls of his enclosure: all he wanted was to get out... but there was no way out of this. There was no ignoring what he'd lost and the pressure of this internal confinement was crushing him down with an unbearable weight.

Heymans looked over at Falman, each of them instantly understanding the other's thoughts. God, if only they knew that to _say_ to him.

"...This is absurd."

Mustang's voice cracked through the quiet inside the car like a whip, harsh and sudden.

"I mean... isn't it?" he went on, sounding bewildered and perhaps vaguely hysterical. "It's just one thing after another. It's just getting steadily worse. It's ridiculous. What have I done wrong? What sins have I committed lately that have made me deserve this? I-I mean, if this doesn't disprove the existence of a benevolent God, then..."

He trailed off shakily, turning to look out the window. The gray light was just bright enough to reveal to Heymans how hard he was fighting to keep himself from weeping in front of his subordinates.

"Or maybe there is a God, and I've just done something to piss him off," he continued, suddenly grinning. "I haven't lost enough yet, or learned whatever fucking lesson He's trying to teach me, so He decides to add a dead baby to the list of my torture? On top of _everything else_?" He gave a frighteningly empty bark of laughter. "Isn't that just fucking _absurd_?"

Heymans swallowed hard, the road before him blurring. "Yes, sir," was all he could think to say.

The sick smile on Mustang's face vanished at the nervous reply. His shoulders hunched and he reached up to unbutton the collar of his uniform, pulling the fabric away from his neck as if he couldn't breathe very well.

"...Sorry," he apologized after a moment, wiping his eye furtively. "That was just kind of a blow, you know? I just had... no idea. She probably didn't even know. I'm sure she didn't. She couldn't have."

"It hit us all pretty hard, sir," Heymans mustered lamely.

Mustang shook himself, closed his eye again tightly, and sat back in the seat.

They pulled up in front of Mustang's home a few moments later. The Fuhrer's manor was a huge, sprawling property, much of it recently renovated in the wake of Mustang's fiery battle with the last Fuhrer to inhabit its pristine halls. Mustang looked out the window, a hushed kind of loathing slithering across his face as he gazed up at the massive front steps—those steps where he had once lain, bleeding and unconscious, as Hawkeye tried to revive him. Heymans could almost hear him thinking: _Why could she save me, when I couldn't save her? How could a belly wound be more damaging than a bullet to the head...? Where is the equivalency in that?_

Heymans got out and opened the door for Mustang, not looking him in the face. Falman got out on the other side, watching them both. It was nearly impossible to ever guess what that man was thinking, but the tightness of his jaw let Heymans know that he, too, was struggling to keep himself calmly unemotional—a trait that usually came naturally to him.

"I'll cancel your meeting with the Treasury in the morning. We can push it back to Thursday, if you'd like..." Heymans offered, knowing that he was probably going to need more than just one day to himself.

"No, it's not necessary..." Mustang tried to protest, getting to his feet.

"Yes it is, sir," Falman said seriously, speaking for the first time. "I think it's very necessary, at this point."

Mustang looked over at him, but then nodded sadly. "Right. Thank you."

Heymans cleared his throat. "What would you like us to do with Edward? I mean, he _did_ try to assassinate you. Do you really want to release him...?"

"Yes." The answer was immediate. "Sign him over to Winry Rockbell and tell her that I don't want him anywhere near Central. I never want to have to see his face again. He's her problem, now. Besides, I don't think he'll try anything again."

"...I'll send through the papers tonight, then."

"Good. Fine."

Mustang looked as if he was about to say something else, but then he just shook his head and walked away from them toward the manor, his hands in his pockets.

But then he stopped.

He stood there motionless for a beat, his slumped shoulders shivering a little against the cold breeze that licked down from the darkening sky. A few scattered raindrops fell, darkening the concrete at his feet in a random pattern of spots.

"...Do you think she knew?"

When neither Falman nor Heymans offered him a quick reply, he half-turned to look at them. His eye was wide, almost scared-looking as he waited for them to answer.

Heymans faltered. That was a loaded question. What he was asking went far deeper than simple knowledge of maternity. Because if Hawkeye had been aware of her condition, that meant that she had known the dangers she was placing in front of her unborn child by going to war. Pregnancy is automatic exclusion from battle, and Hawkeye surely knew this, yet had _chosen_ to take the risk anyway. And when she had heroically taken a fatal bullet for her husband and commander, she had willfully sacrificed not only herself, but their _child_ to keep him safe.

Heymans wanted to think that she hadn't known, that she would never place Mustang's life over the life of both her and her baby... but she _would_ have. She had been willing to sacrifice everything she had to Mustang, and not even because he was her husband... but because he was her Fuhrer.

At least, that's how Mustang would see things. That's what the terror in his eye was, the thought that she had knowingly killed their child to save his life, and that new burden was far heavier than anything that he could possibly lift.

Heymans cleared his throat, his mind lurching queasily in search of an appropriate answer more convincing than a simple "no", and finding nothing but deep sadness.

"I think would have told you if she'd known," Falman said finally, answering without really answering.

Mustang stared at him. The sprinkling from the sky was quickly turning into true rain, making Mustang's dark hair cling to the side of his cheek. He let out a sharp breath that might have been a relapse to that empty bout laughter that had taken him in the car, then said:

"Yes. Yes, of course. H-ha."

Without another word, he turned and quickly ascended the steps to his home. A man at the door let him in, and then all was quiet.

"She knew," Falman confided once the door was closed. "Because I'm pretty sure Fury knew, too."

Heymans let that settle on him for a moment, then wiped a raindrop from his cheek. Then, without speaking to one another again, the two of them got back into the car and went back to work.

* * *

_((A/N: I'm thinking of putting this fic on hiatus. I'm starting to lose steam with this one and I don't really enjoy writing it anymore... and I know it shows in the quality of the writing, for which I apologize. Hopefully I get my inspiration back for this one soon, but I have other things I'd rather be writing at the moment. Perhaps I'll just keep this on the back burner and update whenever the spark hits me, but start posting other fics at the same time. I dunno. I'll try to get at least one more chapter up before deciding anything. Bleh.))_

* * *


End file.
